1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 1 



OK X 1 5 



| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. B 



MONTH 

IN THE 

CAMP BEFORE SEBASTOPOL. 



London . 
A. and G. A. Spottiswoode, 
New-street- Square. 



MONTH 



CAMP BEFORE 'SEBASTOPOL. 



BY A NON-COMBATANT. 



SECOND EDITION. 




LONDON: 

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 

1855. 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER I. 

Plea for Journey — ■ Choosing a Kit — Polish Volunteers — 
" Turkish Cossacks" — Handsome Offer — Malta — 
The Sea .... Page 1 

LETTER II. 

Archipelago — Ida — Dardanelles — Bosphorus — Tidings 
of Victory — Scutari — u Cambria " — Storm — Troop- 
horses Lost — Moonlight Concert- - 8 

LETTER III. 

Crimea — Sebastopol — Balaklava — Sentry at Head- 
quarters — Camp-foragers — Tartar Araba-driver — Drive 
to Camp — Arrival in Camp — Camp Hospitality— Tent 
Pitched — Night in Camp — Midnight Massacre — 
u Alarm "—Result - - - - 15 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER IV. 

A Day in Camp — Kit — Tent — Tent Furniture — Camp 
Honesty — Privations of Army — A Colonel Reporting — 
Morning in Camp — The " Twelve Apostles" — A 
Russian Visitor — Picket-house — Sebastopol — Siege 
Preparations — Menschikoff — Russian Bayonets — 
Camp Repasts — Private Commissariat — Evening in 
Camp — Church-parade — A Move Down - Page 30 

LETTER V. 

Description of Camp — Scenery — Arrangement of Tents 
- — Divisions of Army — Regiments forming Divisions — 
Arrangements in Tents — Cooking — Rations — Raw 
Coffee — No Oats — Tobacco — Teetotalism — Hospitals- 
Stretchers — Not enough Doctors — 44 Something 'ot" — 
Suggestion — Pillows — Medical Stores — Port Wine — 
Vegetable Cakes — Lemon Juice — Prevalence of Disease 
— French 44 Wrinkles " — French Tents — French Bread — 
Cooking by Rotation — 44 Bidon" versus Canteen — Music 
in Camp— Waste of Resources - - 50 



LETTER VI. 

Russian Reconnoissance — Sharpshooters — Volunteers — 
Soldiers and Sailors — A Contrast — 44 The Eve of the 
Bombardment " — Opening of Bombardment — Lancaster 



CONTENTS. 



vii 



Guns — Round Tower — Narrow Escape — Explosion — > 
Ships — The Trenches — Prevailing Malady Page 70 

LETTER VII. 

Share of Ships in the Bombardment — Order of Battle — 
Place of each Ship — French and Turkish Ships— 
Ultimate Order of Battle — " Fortune favours the Brave" 
■—Daring Exploit — Wounded Russian Officer — White 
Hearses - - - - - - 81 

LETTER VIH 

Battle of Balaklava — False Premises — Russian Advance 
— Turkish Cowardice — Final Disposition of Forces — ■ 
Interpretation — Moral — Defence of Silistria — Turks 
" well-Officered ! " — Dilemma — Field after Fight — 
Balaklava Prices — Economical Paradox — " Te Deum" 90 

LETTER IX. 

" Raising the Siege" — Boats at Balaklava— Going to 
Bed — On board Ship — A Sailors' " Lark " — How to 
take Sebastopol — " Neat as a Pin "—Middies - 103 

LETTER X. 

Battle of Inkerman — Removing the Wounded — The 
General Wounded— Point of View— Aspect of Battle 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



— Russian Retreat — Stretchers on Field — Incongruous 
Reflections — Flooring a Croaker — Epigram — Field 
after Fight — Red Uniforms — Attitudes of Dead — 
Maltreatment of Wounded — Duke of Cambridge — 
Departure - Page 111 



A MONTH 

IN THE 

CAMP BEFOKE SEVASTOPOL: 



LETTER I. 

Off Malta, Sept. 24th. 

So you do not altogether approve of my pro- 
ject of passing a few weeks in the Crimea, and 
are inclined to think I shall be " in the way ?" 
I confess I cannot quite make out from your 
letter how this is to happen. Surely the Seat 
of War is a large enough place for all the 
people now in it, and many more, to live 
and walk about in, without jostling ? I carry 
my own house and commissariat with me. 
You do not expect me — do you — to pester 
the Generals with morning calls, or to play the 
Boy Jones at their councils ? 

For my own part, I see no other satisfactory 
mode of finding out what our gallant fellows 
are really doing and suffering, than by pitching 



2 



PLEA FOR JOURNEY. 



one's tent among them. Their own letters, 
deeply interesting as they are, do not supply 
all the information that is wanted. Soldiers 
write like soldiers ; that is to say, a kind of 
professional stoicism restrains them from de- 
scribing one half of what they go through, 
while habit dulls their consciousness of the 
other. Even "Our Own Correspondent/' who 
now-a-days does such excellent service in this 
respect, leaves something to be desired. He 
is obliged to be so clever, so busied with the 
depths and general bearings of things about 
him, that he cannot fail to leave many glean- 
ings for a plain man to pick up. In short, 
I am already half-way to my goal ; and by the 
time you are reading this apology for my 
journey, I hope to be seeing History. 

Let me now ask, whether you happen to 
want a good mental alterative after Nisi 
Prius? If so, pray select, either for your- 
self or a friend, a kit for the Crimea. You 
will go, of course, in the first place, to Edging- 
ton's warehouse across London Bridge ; where 
you will choose a tent with a view to the 
various incidents which you think, on reflec- 
tion, may be looked for at the Seat of War. 



CHOOSING A KIT. 



3 



You will, next, lay in your commissariat and 
special clothing ; your canteen, your saddle, 
pack-saddle, and saddle-bags : lastly (for, how- 
ever comical, it must be done), you will pro- 
vide against Cossacks with a revolver! All 
this, of course, cannot be effected in a day; and 
many books and friends will have been con- 
sulted, to enable you to make a proper selec- 
tion. But, by the time it is accomplished, 
I venture to predict that you will have gone 
through a complete campaign in imagination, 
and will have experienced as many sensations 
as if you had made the Grand Tour in person. 
At any rate, I don't envy the clients who may 
consult you during the process. So exciting, 
I confess, did I find this kind of vivid pro- 
jection of myself into a totally strange sphere, 
that there came, at length, a moment of re- 
action, when I felt that I had sufficiently 
realised the incidents before me, and that the 
actual execution of my plan would be — a 
bore! Were you never guilty — of course, in 
thought only, and for the shortest possible 
time — of a similar absurdity, amico miof 
However, that soon passed ; and, piling up my 
traps upon two cabs, on the 13th of September, 

B 2 



4 



POLES — " TURKISH COSSACKS." 



I found myself, by nightfall, not in the least 
sick, and already out of the Mersey. 

Thus far we have journeyed prosperously 
enough — no storms, hurricanes, or any other 
of the catastrophes which make a voyage 
amusing to the impartial reader. But you, 
who are so much occupied with "the Eastern 
question," may be interested in learning, that 
we carry with us no less than twenty Polish 
volunteers for the Turkish army. They came 
on board, with a letter of introduction to the 
Captain from Lord Dudley Stuart ; and are 
destined for a cavalry corps in course of 
formation, which, together with two others 
already embodied, will complete Sadik Pasha's 
brigade. That chief, as perhaps you know, 
is himself a Pole ; his more Christian de- 
nomination being Michel Chaikowsky. The 
brigade goes bv the name of " The Turkish 
Cossacks" — a title adopted, according to our 
volunteers, out of deference to Austria, who, 
they declare, objects to the more natural 
epithet. Certainly, a Pole by any other name 
will hit as hard ; and they are right not to 
stick at a trifle. But you will agree that a 
simpler explanation is to be found in the fact, 



HANDSOME OFFER. 



5 



that Poles form an insignificant minority in 

the brigade. Major , than whom there 

can be no better authority on such a point, 
told me he himself saw them, not long ago, ma- 
noeuvring at a review, on scraggy ponies, and 
at a foot's pace ; and that the only men worth 
their salt among the number (not excepting thu 
Pasha) were veritable Cossacks — inhabitants 
of a colony planted in Turkey many years back, 
under the auspices of Catherine the Naughty. 

Au reste, our adventurers are mild, mus- 
tachioed, musical men — equal, nevertheless, 
to a stroke of trade when occasion serves. 
Thus, they were provided with first-class 
passages — at the expense, I presume, of other 
pockets than their own. Hearing, however, 
on our arrival at Gibraltar, that there were 
more applications for first-class berths than 
could be granted, their gallant leader quietly 
proposed to the Captain, on behalf of himself 
and his friends, that they should finish the voy- 
age as second-class passengers, on " a consider- 
ation" being given them for the sacrifice. The 
offer was, of course, declined; but it proves 
them to be smart Officers — if in no other sense 
— within the Yankee meaning of the term. 

B 3 



6 



MALTA: 



I shall post this at Malta, where we arrived 
to-day. Know'st thou the land of the Orange 
and Mitten (I allude to the blood-red and 
black-lace varieties respectively) — henns'i 
du es wold? Then you won't be surprised to 
hear, that I look forward to leaving it to- 
morrow without regret. Know'st thou it not ? 
Then learn that it is a Peter Schlemhil of 
a place, with no shade, save in the faces 
of the natives ; while these are so plain, 
that the eye is fain to revert to the glare. 
Fancy an island which looks as if it had been 
deluged with a rain of light ochre, reducing 
town and country, soil, pavement, and roofs, 
to a uniform yellow: banish trees and grass 
from the landscape : place the whole under a 
blinding sun ; and. with your mental optics, you 
will gaze, or rather blink, at Malta. Hurrah, 
therefore, for the cool blue sea again to-morrow ! 

Hitherto, the mere aspects of sky and 
ocean have been enough for my enjoyment. 
After all. it was something to escape, at a 
bound, from a country where the best part 
of people's " sensations" reach them through' 
the medium of small pica, to the wild Atlantic 
— something for a busy man to plunge 
at once into a mode of existence where 



THE SEA. 



7 



the mere perceptions, though confined to a 
few simple combinations of air, light, and 
water, are yet vivid enough to dispense with 
reflection, and where one can live through 
one's eyes, like a child. How long would it 
not take to weary of a sky, which, at mid-day, 
glows with the hue of the turquoise ; growing 
fainter from the zenith, till, at the horizon, it 
shows like pearly-white against a tumbling 
ocean of lapis-lazuli ? How long, before one 
would tire of tracing the long eddies of foam 
which, whirled below the surface in the 
vessel's wake, curl away, like wreaths of pale 
green mist, through the blue abyss ? How 
long might not one be content to lie o 5 nights on 
deck, in this soft warm air, watching the stars 
as they reel around the rocking masts ; while, 
swelling above the bulwarks, the phosphores- 
cent waves might almost make you dream, that 
you were rushing through some mazy dance 
of meteors, in which the heavens and sea were 
commingling ? How long ? Why, we are 
both of us yawning — so, perhaps, such enjoy- 
ments have their period. Never mind; my 
next will be dated from terra firma : on the 
1st, we expect to land in Turkey. 

B 4 



8 



LETTER II. 

Black Sea, Oct. 3rd. 

I trust you are prepared to make a very 
rapid transit with me to Constantinople. The 
shores of the iEgean and the Hellespont, 
with all their glories, are they not written in 
the Handbooks of Murray ? And is not one 
great end of those rubicund tomes even this 
— to shame garrulous travellers out of de- 
scribing what has been well enough described 
already ? The fact is, it is not the time of 
year for such places. The " Isles of Greece," 
in September, are a cluster of brown rocks ; 
and the most interesting fact I have to record 
about them is, that, at Syra, an Austrian lady 
became our fellow passenger, attended by a 
lively little Greek brunette, who, with hair 
disposed in the true " Zoe " style, and feet 
guiltless of shoes and stockings, had, withal, 
those soft, playful, innocent eyes — which do so 
much mischief on board ship. She bore the 
classical name of IloXXyS/a. Modern Greeks, 
you know, pronounce u like y, and care much 
more for accent than quantity ; so be pleased 
to call her— no, not Polly dear /— but Potty dia* 



IDA — DARDANELLES — BOSPHOKUS. 9 

As regards Besika Bay, with the plains of 
Troy, and Ida, in the background — our pace 
was too good for any effect, save that of 
shaking my faith in the applicability of the 
epithet " woody " to the mountain in ques- 
tion. Summer, one is bound to believe, must 
make a great difference, or Homer would 
never have peopled so bare and palpable a 
height with gods and goddesses, Be that as 
it may, the story of Old Troy and The Battle 
of the Ships bid fair to outlast the memory 
of our fleet in the same regions, unless this, 
too, can contrive to get embalmed in some 
poetical lie. 

The sun shone brightly as we steamed by 
the castles of Europe and Asia, which reflected 
his rays from batteries resplendent with fresh 
whitewash ; not so, alas ! as we rounded 
Seraglio Point, where a fog, worthy of London, 
made the Bosphorus as dingy as the Thames. 

It was ten o'clock on the morning of the 30th 
September ; we had anchored within the Golden 
Horn ; your humble servant was growling at 
the ill-timed mist ; and his companions were 
duly telling over the historical rosary by the 
Guide Book for that place made and provided ; 



10 



TIDINGS OF VICTORY. 



when a barge, full of red-fezzed, loose-trousered 
soldiers, was rowed by. " Look at those lazy 
Turks/' cried somebody. " Those are not 
Turks/' said a gentleman who had just come 
up the ship's side ; " they are Zouaves, wounded 
at the Alma:" and in a moment, he was telling 
us the glorious tale ! I leave you to imagine the 
effect of such a recital in such a scene. 
There, with her rich argosies, her full-domed 
mosques, and spear-like minarets, lay Stam- 
boul, coveted of Czars — 

. " teterrima belli 

Causa.", 

Yet no one thought of her. Every eye was 
fixed on the narrator, or followed the receding 
forms of those who had bled in the conflict he 
was describing ; while the faces of the listeners 
burned as if they already felt the breath of 
War. For myself, two facts soon absorbed my 
faculties, One was, that the transport " Cam- 
bria " was to start for the Crimea next morn- 
ing ; the other, that Admiral Boxer had the 
giving away of the passages. I hurried to the 
office, and was successful. So vanished one at 
least of the lions which fearful friends had 
descried in my path. 



SCUTARI — " CAMBRIA." 



11 



The next morning saw me and my ser- 
vant, tents and baggage, en route for Bala- 
klava, and steaming past Scutari barracks. 
The latter, as you know, are now used as 
a hospital; and I hear that so many of 
the rooms are occupied by wounded Eussians, 
that some of our countrymen are lying in the 
passages ! 

It has a strange effect, this thickening of 
the incidents of war around one. The very 
transport in which we are now travelling, 
carried, a fortnight ago, 400 men sick with 
cholera, smallpox, and fever, to Scutari. There 
were four doctors on board, who worked like 
slaves day and night ; but, as they could not 
perform miracles, and had only arrow-root 
and brandy to administer, their patients died 
in crowds. The cabins have since been fumi- 
gated with gunpowder, and squibs, and chloride 
of lime — not enough so, however, to quiet the' 
suspicions of a transport captain, who is our 
fellow-passenger, and who persists in making 
his nights miserable in the saloon. This comes 
of being too knowing : the odds are, that he 
will sicken on his precautions. 

At Buyukdereh, a detachment of the 1st 



12 



TROOP-HORSES LOST. 



(Royal) dragoons came on board, after being 
very nearly wrecked in a sailing transport. 
The tug which had towed them from Varna, 
had abandoned them from stress of weather. 
Ere long, the guns of the vessel got unlim- 
bered in the storm, and a beam, to which the 
horses were tied, fell and crushed crowds of the 
poor creatures beneath it. One (a fine mare) 
leapt overboard ; others were shot, by the 
violence of the motion, into the hold ; others, 
from terror, struggled so convulsively, that 
they were dangerous to approach ; while the 
rest, with eyes knocked out, and bones pro- 
truding from their skin, were dashed from side 
to side on the deck at each roll of the vessel ; 
and the only wonder is, that they and the un- 
limbered guns, between them, did not stave in 
the bulwarks, and send the whole affair to the 
bottom. The second day, proving a little less 
rough, was passed in throwing overboard the 
dead horses, which had begun to stink almost 
immediately — the lurches of the ship being 
taken advantage of for that purpose — and, in 
the evening, she reached Buyukdereh. During 
all these hours of uproar and dismay, no 
human lives were sacrificed. Still, 100 ani- 



MOONLIGHT CONCERT. 



13 



mals perished in the storm — a very great 
loss to the service at this time ; and a yet 
greater one to the Officers, who each possessed 
two or three nags, worth from 100/. to 150/. 
a-piece; for not one of which will the 
frugal public pay^more than 30/. or 40/. com- 
pensation. 

Two such days and nights would hardly 
tend, you might suppose, to sweeten men's tem- 
pers ; yet nothing can exceed the good humour 
and pleasantness of the new comers. Since 
their arrival, moreover, our evenings have been 
enlivened with music. Three or four troopers 
who, in peace-time, belonged to the Band, play 
tunes on their bugles, varied by songs from 
those who possess vocal qualifications. I wish 
you could see one of these moonlight concerts. 
The men come out in every variety of dress 
and undress — some with the brass helmet on ; 
some wearing over it the white linen cover, 
with loose side-flaps ; others with their heads 
tied up in red handkerchiefs, their tall figures 
wrapped in military cloaks, or, yet more 
picturesquely, draped in blankets. The Offi- 
cers gather near, on the poop, and join 
heartily in the plaudits ; but it is a point of 



14 



MOONLIGHT CONCERT. 



etiquette for the men to ignore their presence. 
Presently a song is called for; and a huge 
mustachioed giant advances to the window of 
the steward's cabin, and clears his voice. He 
is the gran tenor e of the regiment. Standing 
outside the cabin, and placing his hands on the 
roof, about as easily as you might rest yours 
on a mantelpiece — the light falling full on his 
face — he sings some Tyrtsean strain, darkly 
alluding to the Czar, under threats of " driv- 
ing back to his mountains the grizzly old 
Bear;" and each verse closing with the re- 
frain — 

44 Then come along — come along — drink while you may 
To-morrow we fight, boys (bis) — let 's be happy to-day ! " 

Poor fellows ! The chorus is real enough 
for them; and the monotone of the rushing 
water as the ship dashes on with them to her 
Goal, does not lessen its significance. But the 
concert is soon over, as our hours on board 
ship are early. So, good night ! 



15 



LETTER III. 

Camp, Oct. 6th. 

The bold headlands of the Crimea loomed 
on our horizon on the afternoon of the 3rd ; 
and we anchored in Eupatoria Bay just in 
time to hear the bells on board some twenty 
great black men-of-war announce midnight. 
Here we learnt — what we were unpatriotic 
enough to hail as good news — that Sebastopol 
had yet to be taken. At dawn, we resumed 
our voyage, and a fine day showed to great 
advantage the bluff, scarped masses of the 
interior. Every second mountain seemed a 
natural fortress ; it was like passing a series 
of Gibraltars. 

Sebastopol we reconnoitred at a respectful 
distance. A jet of light smoke leapt every 
now and then from the forts, but at too long 
intervals to make us apprehensive that the 
assault was in progress. In less than an 
hour more, we were steaming straight into 
what seemed a curved bank of high lime- 
stone rocks. It soon proved, however, to be 
obliquely cut, about the centre, by a narrow 
inlet, like the estuary of a second-class river. 



16 



BALAKLAVA. 



Balaklava harbour (for such it was) is nothing 
more than the continuation below the sea's 
level of a precipitous gorge. For some dis- 
tance from its mouth, it may be said to be 
skirted less with shores than with walls ; and 
so rapidly do these descend, that within a few 
feet of them ride our men-of-war, lying side 
by side, as snug as if in dock. 

Our first introduction to Enemy's Country, 
will never, I am sure, be forgotten by any 
one of our party who was gifted with a sense 
of the noisome. At the entrance of the har- 
bour, considerable curiosity had been excited 
on board by the spectacle of a dead horse, its 
legs sticking starkly out of water, being towed 
by a steamer out to sea. But the reason soon be- 
came obvious to the dullest olfactories. Floating 
in all directions, but especially near shore, werg 
the bloated bodies and fragments of animals, 
in every stage of decomposition, and in num- 
bers sufficient to account for quite as much 
sickness as we afterwards heard w r as in the 
place. I suppose it can't be helped ; but " 'tis 
pity ; " because here are maintained two hospi- 
tals for the poor fellows from camp. As regards 
our own party, you maybe certain no one among 



BALAKLAVA. 



17 



us was going to play Hotspur's " waiting gen- 
tlewoman " thus early in the day. So, gaily 
ignoring; the carrion, we here wished each 
other good speed, and went our several ways. 

Fortunately for me the was in har- 

bour. Next morning, therefore (having 
slept on board the transport), I set off to 
deliver my letter and parcel. I found 

that was closeted with Lord Kaglan ; 

and, waiting till he was disengaged, I em- 
ployed the interval in observing the scene 
around me. The town, though it boasts one 
or two mean-looking churches, and though a 
ruined tower crowns one of the heights above 
it, is a sad tumble-down affair. It is situated 
two or three hundred yards from the mouth 
of the harbour, and straggles for about a 
quarter of a mile along the South side of it, on 
the narrow strip of shore which there inter- 
venes between the water and the rock. In 
general effect, it reminded me of the sort of 
places one sees in some parts of Ireland, where 
stone is abundant, and nothing else ; and 
where copious whitewash does duty for repairs. 

Lord Kaglan's house was not much 
above the level of the general wretchedness. 

c 



18 SENTRY AT HEAD- QUARTERS — QUAY. 

Before the door paced to and fro a sentry, 
whose get-up was not at all out of keep- 
ing with his situation. He had a soiled 
red coat ; its ragged worsted tags were the 
reverse of ornamental ; and its open collar 
showed neither stock nor shirt. His rusty 
black trousers gaped vainly here and there 
for buttons, and were tucked up unceremoni- 
ously at the heels to keep dry. His boots were 
the colour of the dust they trod on ; so were 
his Saxon locks, and sunburnt face. Never- 
theless, there was that about his quiet honest 
bearing which would, I think, have proclaimed 
him, even without the distinctive red, a 
British soldier. 

The quay before the house was one struggling 
mass of bullock- waggons, dromedaries, and am- 
munition-carts. There were Jack-tars in couples 
baling out of barges heavy shot, and using 
for that purpose an iron instrument, shaped 
like two Greek placed over each other, one 
upside down, and the other erect, so that the 
circles coincide (each man takes- hold of the 
two prongs at his own end, and the shot lies 
in the central ring). Commissaries were shout- 
ing to bombardiers, soldiers were imprecating 



CAMP-FORAGEKS. 



araba-drivers, who in their turn were taking a 
vicarious vengeance by prodding their beasts. 
But that the whole business was not so chaotic 
as it looked, was proved by the continuous line 
of carts, full of provisions and munitions of war, 
which streamed steadily off towards the camp. 
While I was watching this novel scene, 

came out into the porch, and most 

hospitably invited me to make the my 

head-quarters during my stay in the Crimea. 
Upon my expressing, however, a desire to 
reach the front without delay, he, with equally 
ready kindness, gave me the means of doing so. 
I now returned to the 44 Cambria" for my bag- 
gage, and found her already invaded by a tat- 
tered, but gallant, troop from the camp. They 
had cleaned out pretty nearly everything ; but 
I succeeded in buying a bottle of whiskey (5s.), 
two live ducks, a ham and tongue (all for 
moderate prices), and a lump of salt. The last 
luxury I was put up to purchasing by one of 
the new comers, who gave me many good 
hints on the subject of my commissariat. I 
don't know my benefactor's name, but sure I 
am that he was an accomplished forager and 
excellent man. 



20 



TARTAR AR ABA-DRIVER. 



Leaving my -baggage to follow with my ser- 
vant, I set off to the camp, and was lucky enough 
to get a lift in an araba, which was conveying 
a sick Officer to the same Division of the Army 
as that to which I was destined. "Luck," you 
know, is a comparative word. The vehicle in 
question was simply a basket on wheels, 
drawn by bullocks, and devoid of springs, 
cushions, seats, or any other contrivance 
for saving the human vertebra from dislo- 
cation. The driver was one of a batch of 
Crim-Tartars, who were pounced upon — bul- 
locks, waggons and all — by our troops, on 
their march to their present quarters. 

As matters turned out, I had plenty of leisure 
to philosophise on the features of this specimen 
of the human race, which did not strike me as 
very Mongolian in type. His cheek bones, like 
those of many others of his brethren whom I 
have since observed, were not particularly 
high ; his eyebrows did not slope up, as I had 
expected, a la Chinoise ; nor was his mouth 
of any remarkable amplitude. The chief 
peculiarity about the Crim-Tartars lies, I 
think, in their nose, which, though straight, 
is so small, both as to length and prominence, 



DRIVE TO CAMP. 



21 



that, set as it is on a full round face but 
slightly garnished with beard, it gives them 
the appearance of overgrown boys. Although 
prisoners, they look fat and jolly enough; 
and have, indeed, small cause to look other- 
wise ; seeing that we pay them oL a month, 
out of which, I hear, they manage to save 
money. 

Just as we had commenced jolting along at 

the bottom of our basket, my friend , who is 

one of General— — 's Aide-de-camps, happened 
by good luck to cross our path. His face had got 
so gloriously blowzed, and he sported so mag- 
nificent a beard, that nothing but the tones of 
his hearty voice enabled me to recognise him. 
After a brief welcome, he galloped off to give 
directions as to the pitching of my tents ; and 
I jogged on my way, rejoicing at having come 
thus early across his cheerful presence. 

But hour after hour passed; the distance was 
only six miles; we had mounted many hills, and 
fathomed many ruts — yet no camp was visible. 
The sun, moreover, was setting, and we were in 
enemy's country. Above all, our compound con- 
tusions were beginning to tell. Fiercely turn- 
ing, therefore, on the arabajee, we charged 

c 3 



22 



ARRIVAL IN CAMP. 



him with the design of taking us to Sebastopol ! 
Perhaps, the accusation was true ; most p'ro- 
bably, it was not : certain it is, that, after an 
animated discussion, in which " Johnny 71 
(equivalent to heark'ye /), in connection with 
" Bono" and " No Bono," formed pretty nearly 
the only language common to all parties, 
our Jehu turned bolt round, took a direction 
at right angles to that which he had been pur- 
suing, and brought us, a little after dark, 

within sight of the camp-fires of the 

Division. 

And now, should you ever run your head 
against the " Great Asian Mystery," and have 
to discourse on the marvellous virtues of the 
Arab race, set it roundly down, that they 
are hospitable because they live in tents. 
Under similar conditions of canvass, John 
Bull beats them hollow ! Such, at least, was 
the ethnological conviction — the more valu- 
able, as I never travelled in Arabia — which 
flashed across me on arriving at the — — - 
Division. My traps had not come up ; I 
was an idler in the midst of stern work ; yet 

not only did my friend invite me for 

that night to share his pavilion (it is 6 feet 
long, by 3 high, and 2| broad), but General 



CAMP HOSPITALITY. 



23 



, to whom I merely carried a letter of 

introduction, pressed me most kindly to 
accept a corner of his, and that, though 
one of his Aide-de-camps already divides it 
with him. 

While it was yet uncertain whether I should 
have to close with either of these good-natured 
offers, dinner was served, and I became a 
hungry partaker. The appetite inspired by 
my long drive did not prevent my looking 
with considerable interest at the novel en- 
tourage of this my first camp-repast. The 
General's tent differs in no respect from those 
of the common soldiers. A single wax-candle, 
placed on the ground, lit the interior. Canvass 
forage-bags, cloaks, and waterproofs, spread 
around, hid the bare earth ; and on them re- 
clined, more antiquo, the General and his Staff. 
I alone enjoyed the dignity of a seat, viz., 
a portmanteau. No such thing as table, chair, 
bed, bedding, or couch, was visible. As I 
looked at these simple arrangements, I could 
not help thinking— if such was all the comfort 
enjoyed by a General in the Crimea, what must 
be the condition of inferior Officers? It was 
not till afterwards that I learnt that, in these 

c 4 



24 



CAMP HOSPITALITY. 



respects, Sir cannot be persuaded 

to allow himself, either on the score of his years 
or of his rank, the smallest advantage over his 
subalterns. Fortunately, however, for my un- 
Spartan appetite on the occasion in question, it- 
does happen that the General, having to feed 
three lusty Aides, keeps a French chef; and this 
incomparable artist, though he cooks al fresco, 
is said to be capable of doing anything short 
of transmuting ration-pork and biscuits into 
soles au gratin. A very good dinner was 
followed by coffee, and by tobacco for the 
juniors. 

You do not, of course, imagine that our 
entertainment was of the full-dress order. 
Everybody, in fact, except my unmilitary 
self, wore the working Staff-uniform — blue 
frock and gilt buttons, blue red-striped 
trousers, and high boots— nor did any one 
doff his gold-laced forage-cap, in compliment 
either to the occasion, or to the flimsv 
canopy which alone protected our heads 
from heaven, Altogether — setting aside a 
certain grotesque figure on a portmanteau 
— a painter might have made something of 



TENT PITCHED. 



25 



the gallant group which, lit by that solitary 
candle, lay, little dreaming of a tableau, 
round the person of their chief. 

Meantime, my tents had arrived, and I re- 
tired to assist in pitching them. The camp- 
fires had all gone out ; but there, sure 
enough, by the light of the stars, appeared 
a small heap of bags and portmanteaus, shot 
out on the bare earth ; out of which (it re- 
quired a strong effort of reason to believe) 
I was thenceforth to find myself in bed, 
board, and lodging. The tents were soon 
out of their bags, and sprawling over the 
ground. But how to put them up ? My 
servant, J ohn Economites — a native of the 
Ionian Islands, whom I had engaged at Con- 
stantinople — had never done such a thing in 

his life. My friend 's camp-servants, on 

the other hand, were only accustomed to the 
Regulation bell-tents, from which mine differed 
considerably. Moreover, the night was cold. It 
was decided, under these circumstances, that, 
leaving the more recondite portions to be put 
up next morning, we should confine our atten- 
tion to the outer wall of the principal tent ; and 



26 



NIGHT IN CAMP. 



this, after a vigorous effort of our united 
intellects, we succeeded in erecting properly. 
My traps were soon placed inside ; a water- 
proof blanket, 'ycleped a " waterdeck," spread 
out on the ground, served for a bed ; and, with 
the unattached canvass tent-lining for bed- 
clothes, I made no doubt that I should pass the 
night comfortably (X.B. Xobody undresses 
in camp, except for ablutionary purposes). 

My friend 's servant engaged to find 

lodging for John. The only other living 
beings remaining to be provided for, were my 
two ducks, which were hung up by the heels 
to one of the strings from the roof of my tent. 
With a parting counsel not to be disturbed if 
I heard a little musketry before dawn — 
that being the favourite time for the Cossacks 
to vex our pickets — my friend wished me 
good-night. 

I was soon asleep ; when, hark ! what sound 
was that close to my ear ! Cossacks ? then Cos- 
sacks must make very singular noises ! " Quack- 
quack, quack-quack, quack-quack ! " At last, 
thoroughly awake, I remembered the sus- 
pended ducks. Poor creatures — I reflected — 



MIDNIGHT MASS ACHE. 



27 



they are certainly addicted, when at liberty on 
the water, to thrusting their tails up and their 
heads down.; but, perhaps, so prolonged an in- 
version of the centre of gravity as they had 
now undergone, might have become a little 
too much of a good thing. So, emerging 
most reluctantly from my warm nest, I 
placed them (merely tying them together 
by the feet to prevent escape), on the ground, 
and went to sleep again. In vain! Once 
more the wretched couple — may-be, grown 
sick of each other — set up their confounded 
clamour ; and this time so loudly, that I 
thought , his brother Aides, and the Ge- 
neral himself, would be awakened by it ! The 
case evidently called for extreme measures. 
Moodily lighting my candle, therefore, and 
gazing awhile at the doomed pair, I sought 
among the litter around me for an imple- 
ment suitable to the crisis — that night they 
quacked no more ! 

It was not long before my rest was 

broken, as had predicted, by distant 

musketry. In another minute, I could hear 
the prophet, in his proper person, ordered off 



28 



" ALARM." 



to ascertain the cause. Away went his 
horse's hoofs in the direction of the firing ; 
whence, after a few minutes, they as quickly 
clattered back to the General. " Fall in!" 
— "Get under arms!" now buzzed along 
the lines ; followed by a heavy trampling of 
feet, as the men ran from their tents to their 
firelocks. I had been forewarned that these 
" alarms " were constant, and had nothing 
necessarily alarming about them ; but, being 
dressed and booted, I could not resist going 
out to see what was doing. There, in their 
grey great coats, and already formed in line, 
stood the soldiers of the — — Division. Three 
minutes before, they were in dream-land. The 
musketry had ceased, but no more sleep was in 
store for them that morning. The " alarm " 
had, in fact, occasioned a turn-out half an hour 
before the period (four a. m. till sunrise) consi- 
dered to be the most likely for attempts at sur- 
prises; and which is, therefore, in obedience to 
a Standing Order, always passed under arms. 
It was now bright moonlight and bitterly cold. 
So, shivering both for myself and them, I ran 
back under cover, and dived under the pile 



RESULT. 



29 



of lining — feeling, I confess, a good deal like 
a Sybarite, who has no business to be so com- 
fortable. Nevertheless — but that, you'll say, 
only completes the resemblance — I soon slept, 
and soundly ; till daylight, and a buzz of con- 
versation, of which my woven walls gave me 
the full benefit, banished all further ideas of 
repose. 



30 



LETTER IV. 

Camp, Oct. 9th. 

It certainty has a strange effect, to awake 
from some dream of England to midnight in 
camp : to stretch out one's hand in sleep 
against the dew-drenched canvass, and sud- 
denly become conscious, that you are on the 
Czars land without leave. It takes a mo- 
ment or two to remember, that the perfect 
stillness is not solitude; that the slumbering 
host around is encircled by hundreds of 
wakeful eyes ; and that a single shot, a single 
cry, would send a shock of life through the 
whole mass ! 

That is to say, the effect did strike me as 
strange. But I have now been under canvass 
four days, and am grown so familiar with a 
hundred equally strange things, that I see 
clearly, if I do not at once attempt to give you 
some notion of them, I shall become as in- 
capable of doing so, as if I had been out here 
for a twelvemonth. 

Whatever intricate dogmas may prevail 
on the subject, there can be no doubt that 
human happiness, in some situations, de- 
pends largely on a man's kit. Mine is whim- 



A DAY IN CAMP KIT. 



31 



sically said to be a luxurious one ; so it may 
the better serve to suggest the state of other 
people's. Some idea on this subject you must 
perforce have, before I can explain to you the 
character of a day in camp. 

Let us begin, then, with my domicile. It is 
one of Benjamin Edgington's " Travellers' 
Tents/' and differs altogether from the K emula- 
tion u bell-tent " of the Army. The latter — as 
you probably are aware — is composed of a cone 
about eight feet high, with a diameter of four- 
teen, on a circular wall a foot and a half high ; 
the whole supported by a single pole. The 
shape of mine is that of two oblong planes in- 
clined against each other, with their bases (which 
are twelve feet long) about ten feet apart. It 
is supported by three very light poles, which 
take to pieces. The centre one is about eight 
feet high ; the two at the ends are two feet 
shorter ; so as to give the top line of the roof 
a slightly pyramidical character. The per- 
pendicular walls at the two ends are bisected 
from top to bottom, and the halves can either 
be reefed up, so as to leave an open entrance ; 

or they can be laced together, when they 

effectually shut out the wind, 



32 



" traveller's tent; 



This shape, which, I believe, obtained for its 
inventor a reward at the Great Exhibition, has 
certainly some advantages over the bell-tent. 
Being less tall and more compact, it does not, 
in a gale, make such a deafening rattle — and 
that, by the way, is no slight consideration in a 
camp, where a quick ear when one is in one's 
tent, is as important as a quick eye when one 
is out of it. Again, in hot weather, by reefing 
the doors at the two ends, you can obtain a 
draught through the whole tent from top to 
bottom ; whereas in the other, where there is 
but one entrance through a little flap in the 
side, a draught can only be made by reefing 
the circular wall ; and as this is only a foot 
and a half high, the current scarcely reaches a 
man on a camp -bedstead, while the hot air in 
the body of the tent remains quite unagitated. 

The only inconvenience I have discovered in 
the shape of the " Traveller's Tent," is one that 
would not affect travellers in general; and for 
aught I know, even it might be remedied. There 
are two ropes attached to the tops of the poles 
at each end, which require to be pegged down 
on the ground, at a distance of from five to six 
feet fore and aft of the tent. As the bell-tents 



TENT-LINING. 



33 



are otherwise constructed, nobody in camp 
looks out for these projecting supports ; and 
at night, especially, they are sad stumbling- 
blocks. In fact, a horseman has just given 
the tent so violent a shock through this cause, 
that my unfortunate aneroid has been pre- 
cipitated from its nail on the centre pole, and 
will never foretell weather more. 

But the grand comfort, or as they call it here, 
the "luxury" of my tent, is one that is indepen- 
dent of its external shape : namely, the lining 
through one half of it. This is stretched at a 
distance of about six inches from the outer 
canvass; and, when closed at both ends, it 
forms a distinct inner room. The protection it 
affords against cold, or heat, may be put down 
at six degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, though my 
tent is so much less tall than a bell-tent, that 
its weight, together with that of the lining, 
little exceeds that of the other, yet the ad- 
vantage in point of temperature is altogether 
on the side of the former ; and in a land where 
extremes of heat and cold succeed each other 
rapidly, this is but another mode of saying, 
that the advantage in point of healthfulness is 
so likewise. 

D 



34 



TENT FURNITURE. 



My servant's domicile, called in England a 
" patrol-tent/ 7 and a "kennel" here, stands 
close by, so as to be within hail, and is about 
six feet long, by three high. Two of the Gene- 
ral's Aides have nothing better ! 

My furniture may be very shortly de- 
scribed: — -A stretcher, or bedstead, formed 
of two wooden 6^- feet poles (each of which 
takes to pieces), connected by a strip of 
canvass 3 feet wide ; the latter being stretched 
tight by means of three pair of low, detachable, 
scissor- shaped legs, on the principle of a com- 
mon camp-stool; — one inch-thick mattrass and 
pillow ; — two waterproof blankets, or " water- 
decks;" — an iron wash-hand-stand which can be 
packed in a tin box ; the box serving as a tub, 
and its cover, when placed on the wash-hand- 
stand,, forming a table (Nota bene. The com- 
mon fault of such articles is, that they are 
made as high as if meant for use in England, 
whereas in a place where chairs are not, and 
where stretchers are the loftiest seats procu- 
rable, no table should stand more than a foot 
and three-quarters from the ground) ; — a very 
primitive Maltese canteen, consisting of a pan 
large enough to hold a kettle (which also serves, 



CAMP HONESTY. 



35 



or rather served, as teapot), a gridiron, three 
tin cups without handles, three tin plates, two 
knives and forks, two large and two small pew- 
ter spoons (Nota bene again. The canteen-kettle 
is generally made very shallow and broad, 
to facilitate, I suppose, its stowage. But the 
result is, that unless it is placed very evenly 
on the fire, the highest portion of the bottom 
is left dry, and becomes unsoldered. My own 
is already rendered useless from this cause, and 
I am consequently dependent on the General's) ; 
— lastly, one portmanteau for my wardrobe, 
and another in which are stowed some her- 
metically-sealed provisions, a case of Lemann's 
biscuits, and a few soda-water bottles filled with 
brandy and whiskey. Nothing hides the hard 
brown earth; inasmuch as the tent and bedstead 
bags, which might have been applied to the pur- 
pose, are a great deal more necessary for John, 
who sleeps in the " kennel 57 on the ground. 

It will convey to you some idea of the ad- 
mirable order in camp, when I add, that 
one of my boxes, containing things for which 
I have no immediate use, is kept outside my 
tent. Though the wood, at any rate, of which 
it is composed, would be useful to many a sol- 

D 2 



36 



PRIVATIONS OF ARMY. 



dier who has to trudge to a distance for fuel, 
everybody assures me that it is perfectly safe. 
Indeed pilfering, so far as I can ascertain, is 
unheard of. Of what other community could 
the same be said ? 

I don't suppose the foregoing enumeration 
of my possessions in the Crimea is so inviting as 
to put you out of conceit of your establishment 
in the Temple ; nevertheless, there are items in 
it, for which no equivalents, or substitutes, how- 
ever paltry, are to be found among the majority 
of the Officers in camp. Thus in most tents, 
the means of ensuring personal cleanliness are 
absolutely wanting. The sea is too distant 
for bathing ; and though there are little springs 
in various neighbouring hollows, nobody has 
vessels which can be applied to washing. The 
men have only the small pans which they use 
in cooking ; the Officers, destitute even of 
these, borrow them from the men, and manage, 
perhaps, such a toilet as can be accomplished 
with half a pint of water, unaided by towel, 
soap, nail-brush, tooth-brush, hair-brush, or 
comb ! Razors, naturally, are out of the ques- 
tion. Even before the landing, almost every 
one had abandoned them— from the bearded 



PRIVATIONS OF ARMY. 



37 



Grenadier, whose face looks like a continuation 
of his own bearskin, to the callow Ensign, 
whose 

" beauty draws us by a single hair." 

Of course, it was the necessity, when they dis- 
embarked here, of bearing all their possessions 
on their backs, that reduced the Army to their 
worst trials. The sufferings entailed by actual 
fighting, by night-work in the trenches, or by 
a bivouac such as the troops were only relieved 
from five or six days ago, are bad enough ; 
yet they are only part of the prospect contem- 
plated by every man of sense when he adopts 
the military profession. But the unmentionable 
horrors of a state of things where neither the 
clothing can be changed, nor the body cleansed, 
for weeks on weeks! — -when men born and 
trained as our Officers are born and trained, 
are found undergoing these, without a com- 
plaint on their lips — England may well be 
proud of her " gentlemen.' 7 

The Generals, Field-officers, and Staff, are 
somewhat better off ; they possess basins and 
tubs ; those who like it, can shave ; and I have 
even seen a few white shirts, though they were 

D 3 



38 



A COLONEL REPORTING. 



not starched. Still, it was only the other day 
that even this portion of the Army got tents over 
their heads ; and that you may not have too ex- 
alted a notion of their comforts, I will describe 
to you the costume in which I lately saw the 
Colonel of a regiment making his morning's 
report to General Brown. Both stood outside 
Sir George's tent, and I was one of a fumigating 
group not far off. The Colonel's black trou- 
sers hung in folds over his spurs, for lack of 
braces. His red coatee was fastened with 
three buttons, and showed to advantage a 
chocolate-coloured flannel shirt. The long 
ends of a silk neckcloth, tied in a sailor's knot, 
dangled over the coatee ; and over all, was a 
dilapidated great coat, which had certainly 
not been brushed for the occasion. One hand 
he kept in his pocket ; the other held a well- 
browned meerschaum ; and with many vigo- 
rous pulls thereat, he told his story. 

But to return. The day in camp begins, 
for me, when I hear the troops coming 
back to their tents after morning parade. 
Persons who have not tried it, might sup- 
pose, that the pounding from the fort-guns 
would act as an earlier reveillee. But to this 



A RUSSIAN VISITOR. 



39 



the ear becomes habituated almost immedi- 
ately. I have heard a General of Division say, 
that, while he sleeps easily enough through 
almost any amount of cannonading, the faintest 
report of a musket rouses him at once ; for 
that indicates the approach of the enemy. As 
regards myself, not having to get up at either, 
I can sleep through both. 

Directly after sunrise, the soldiers light their 
fires, and the Officers light their cigars, and 
chat over the night's work * in cosy little 
groups, till the sun puts some warmth into 
them after the cold parade. Two or three of 
them were thus engaged yesterday before my 
tent, when I received the nearest introduction 
I have yet obtained to a Kussian projectile. 
You must know, the sound made by the rushing 
of shot and shell through the air, is generally 
audible here ; though we are so far from the 
fort guns that they cannot carry anything like 
the distance, unless fired at a great elevation. 
When this is the case, accuracy of aim is out 
of the question ; and even if a ball does pay 
you a visit, it descends from such a height 
that it lies where it falls, and does no further 
mischief. A shell, however, is a more ugly 



40 



A RUSSIAN VISITOR. 



customer ; and one, happening to alight, three 
or four days ago, among the tents of the Fourth 
Division, killed one man and wounded another. 
The piece that did the mischief, is supposed to 
be on board a certain man-of-war called the 
u Twelve Apostles,' 7 which lies at the nearest, 
or Southern extremity of the harbour. She is 
careened over before firing, in order to give 
the mortar the highest possible elevation. 

However, I have given you a very long 
preface to a very simple affair. Our visitor 
announced his approach in this wise: — First, 
came the report of the discharge ; then, a loud 
noise, between a whistle and a whiz (a sort of 
crescendo wheu-u-u-gh ! ), apparently quite close ; 
then, a thud against the ground, some thirty 
yards past me ; and then — a sense of the extreme 
ease with which I had earned the respectability of 
having been " under fire !" The missile fell near 
a donkey, without penetrating the hard ground 
more than an inch or two ; and, for a few 
seconds, the soldiers round about, taking it 
for a shell, gave it a wide berth, expecting to 
see the poor jackass blown into fragments. 
The spectacle not coming off, however, as soon 
as was expected, some one went up, and dis- 



PICKET-HOUSE. 



41 



covered the cause of all the excitement to be 
a plain unexplosive 32-pounder. 

The donkey and myself, all this while, had 
kept our legs, though wiser animals threw 
themselves on their faces. In fact, the chief 
start my nerves sustained on the occasion, 
was from seeing one or two of my friends fall 
flat at my feet This, however, I afterwards 
learnt, is quite the correct mark of respect to 
pay a passing shell, nor have I the slightest 
intention of omitting it for the future. 

After the matinee fumante, comes breakfast; 
and then — equally a matter of course— a walk 
to the Picket-house. No account of Crimean 
camp-life would be complete without mention 
of this much-frequented lounge. It is a little 
ruin, appropriated, as its name imports, to one 
of the pickets, and is situated on the brow of 
the hill, two or three hundred yards in front 
of the Light Division. Thence it commands 
a view of Sebastopol to the left, and of the sea 
and the fleets to the right. There is a court- 
yard round it, with a wall about four feet 
high, behind which may perpetually be seen 
Officers with double eye-glasses, and telescopes, 
directed towards the town. 



42 



SIEGE PREPARATIONS. 



Sebastopol, seen from this point, appears 
to be a handsome city, containing many 
substantial public works, constructed out of 
the light stone of the country. There are 
no walls; so the talk about " breaching' 7 
is — talk. But the place is defended on the 
South side by a Round Tower, a Redan, 
and various earthworks. The masts of the 
" Twelve Apostles" are easily distinguishable. 

Everything is preparing for the bombard- 
ment. The trenches were commenced the day 
before yesterday, and a few guns, I believe, are 
placed in position. They will remain silent, how- 
ever, for the present, and until they can open 
their fire to some purpose ; as, of course, there 
is no use in letting the enemy know beforehand 
their true position and forwardness. Up to 
this moment, though it is clear, from the in- 
creased activity of the fort batteries, that some- 
thing is suspected, no shot or shell have 
come near the working parties. Meanwhile, 
waggons after waggons arrive from Balaklava, 

OO Co I 

filled with the fruits of the immense efforts 
made at Varna to prepare munitions for the 
siege. So incessant, I am told, was the labour 
there imposed upon the troops, that a private 



MENSCHIKOFF — RUSSIAN BAYONETS. 43 

was heard to exclaim, that he supposed people 
at head-quarters now read the 4th command- 
ment as, " Six days thou shalt make gabions 
and fascines, and the seventh day thou shalt 
have heavy- marching-order parade ! " 

It does not appear whether the Eussians have 
recovered from the fright they got on the 20th. 
A Polish deserter, who was taken the other 
day, said, that MenschikofF had given out, that 
our triumph at the Alma was entirely due to 
our superiority in fire-arms ; and that we could 
only be effectually opposed with the bayonet ! 
The story, ridiculous as it sounds, receives 
some colour of probability from what one of our 
sentries has just seen. He got close enough 
to Sebastopol to observe a body of infantry 
practising charging at wooden boards — prac- 
tising, moreover, cheering as they did so ! 

After spending the morning at the Picket- 
house, those who have nothing better to do, 
generally go, during the heat of the day, to 
their tents to read the newspapers. Of these 
we get a good supply, and, though they 
seem engrossed with what is doing here, 
they often bring news. Much is said about 
the harm they do by conveying information 



44 



CAMP KEPASTS. 



to the enemy. When, however, one considers 
the enormous quantity of rumours in camp 
that are affirmed one day, and contradicted 
the next — and the very few persons who can 
possibly know what is really doing, and being 
projected — it is difficult not to believe that 
the estimate of the evil is exaggerated. The 
Czar, one would rather suspect, must be situated 
in the matter much as is the poor Sultan 
with regard to his Bulgarian subjects, accord- 
ing to the Cadi in Household Words: — " Our 
father, the Sultan, knows how to deal with 
the Turks, for they always speak truth ; and 
Avith the Greeks, for they always tell lies ; but 
with the Bulgarians, who speak sometimes 
truth, and sometimes lies — with them, he 
knows not how to deal ! " 

The afternoon is always cool, and it is the 
best time for seeing the country, and for ex- 
ploring among the curiosities of the camp. 
So the day passes till dinner. You are aware, 
I dare say, that there are no regimental 
messes here ; but that the Officers generally 
club together in twos and threes. On my way 
home of an evening, my efforts are directed to 
breaking up some one or other of these parties, 



PRIVATE COMMISSARIAT. 



45 



by carrying off a stray friend to share my 
scrambling repast ; when John's inventive fa- 
culties are taxed to the utmost. Happily, my 
guests are easy to please ; but I have already 
made the discovery, that my month's store of 
food is not quite so luxurious as it promised 
to be. The cans of hermetically-sealed cooked 
meats which I brought out, labelled " Lamb 
and Peas," " Boiled Beef," " Haricot Mutton," 
and bearing a dozen other equally imposing 
titles, are certainly better than nothing — but 
that is all I can say of them. The meat is 
cooked to rags, and these, again, are lubricated 
by masses of fat. No invalid could touch them. 
Why gelatine should not be resorted to, in- 
stead of grease (as in the case of Hogarth's 
Essence of Beef, and of the preserved soups), 
I don't know. 

If I were to lay in a fresh commissariat 
(you may tell your military friends), I would 
bring lemons, to counteract these adipose pre- 
parations, and to supply, in a sanitary point 
of view, the place of vegetables. I would 
also try to get the French caked preparation 
of vegetables themselves; and I would cer- 
tainly put up some tins of the English patented 



46 



EVENING IN CAMP. 



paste of preserved milk and chocolate — the 
preserved milk alone is not worth its room. 

This, however, is a digression. Practically, 
and so long as a man is well, his camp-appe- 
tite is equal to most things. The dinner 
equipage may be scanty ; but, by dint of a 
bold nomenclature, its shortcomings are grace- 
fully veiled. Thus, one talks of a "glass" of 
wine, though that liquor (supposing you to 
possess it) is served in a handleless tin mug 
— the same mug which, in the course of the 
evening, will figure as a " cup" or a " tumbler," 
according as it may be charged with coffee, or 
whiskey-toddy. Smoke, moreover, with which 
the repast invariably concludes, covers a mul- 
titude of sins in the preceding arrangements 

— but not smoke of Turkish chibouques, 
nor of mild, romantic, Oriental tobacco. Ca- 
vendish and shag — short clays and meer- 
schaums — and cigars, when they can be got 

— maintain their ground in the taste of the 
campaigners, despite of their Eastern experi- 
ence ; and a ship-load of such supplies, would, 
no doubt, be easily sold here. 

Everybody turns in by half-past nine. By ten, 
the last fires have gone out, the last araba has 



CHURCH-PARADE. 



47 



screeched past with its load ; and — but for the 
long spectral crowd of tents that you see glim- 
mering through the distance, as you lace up 
your doors for the night — you might believe 
yourself in the wilderness. 

Such is a general description of a day in 
camp ; but yesterday, being Sunday, the rou- 
tine was broken by the impressive ceremony of 
an open-air Church-parade. Each Division, on 
these occasions, has divine service performed 
by its own Chaplain. Ours was drawn up on 
the rising ground, just beyond the tents, in 
a dense hollow square. The Clergyman and 
Officers occupied the centre. Every one was 
covered. Some of the men wore forage- 
caps, for lack of shakos ; and on dit that the 
loss of these stiff and ugly varieties of head- 
gear is submitted to with great resignation by 
the Line generally. The Chaplain, with his 
dark velvet skull-cap, and black moustache 
and beard, reminded me of a foreign padre in 
canonicals. 

We were scarcely placed in position, before 
the loud rush of round-shot from the fort was 
heard, again and again, in our ears, causing 
sundry dislocations of the square — the men 



48 



CHURCH -PAR ADE. 



grinning and swaying about at each whirr 
in a kind of jocular disorder. Nothing was 
left for it but to move off. So we took up our 
ground a few hundred yards lower down ; and 
here — though a fleecy little cloudlet, which 
announced its birth in a thunder-clap, showed 
that a shell had burst above us, not very far 
off to our rear — the service was conducted to 
a close. Every body, of course, stands, upon 
these occasions, throughout the ceremony. To 
obviate fatigue, therefore, the Litany and Com- 
munion are omitted. The Chaplain preached 
extemporaneously, and with so excellent a 
voice, that, though the wind was blowing his 
surplice about, it did not drown his tones. I was 
amused by his British sang froicL Half his con- 
gregation might perish round the walls of Se- 
bastopol before next Church-parade— a theme 
which the threatening missiles exploding about 
him, would have served sufficiently well to en- 
force — but he utterly disdained such obvious 
rhetoric. Perhaps, indeed, it is considered 
undesirable to allude to subjects of the kind ; 
and certainly they are too patent to need much 
insisting on. At anv rate, the reverend 
gentleman neither noticed the pyrotechnics 



A MOVE DOWN. 



49 



in his sound practical sermon, nor in his own 
person ; but stood with his back to the fort, 
and preached on some everyday text, and never 
changed his voice, or turned his head, in com- 
pliment to shot or shell. 

Next day the Division moved its quarters 
two or three hundred yards further from the 
enemy. 



E 



50 



LETTER V. 

Camp, Oct. 14th. 

I daee say you think it is time that I should 
fulfil my promise of giving you a general 
description of the camp ; but I confess, I do 
not even now approach so large a subject 
without trepidation. No one but a mili- 
tary man can treat it properly. However, 
if you will take the following "notions" 
for what they are worth — as the impressions 
of a pekin, who pretends not to professional 
accuracy — why, perhaps, they may help you 
in any after inquiries into the subject, or, 
possibly, throw light on some of the more 
authoritative accounts that will reach you 
from hence. 

Nothing can be imagined more dreary and 
barren than the country in which the camp 
is pitched. Though, in reality, an elevated 
table land, it is so extensive that it produces 
the effect of an undulating plain. The high 
distant hills beyond its Eastern and Southern 
extremities, are thus comparatively dwarfed. 
The sea is hidden by rising ground to the 



CAMP SCENERY. 



51 



Westward. The highest side of the plateau 
is towards the North, and the camp is placed 
two or three hundred yards below the summit. 
This summit is crossed by several gorges; 
and from it, there is a slope Northward, about a 
mile and a half long, down to Sebastopol. 

The colouring of the scenery is simple 
enough — namely, plain drab. No vegetation 
is visible. There are, indeed, good vineyards 
(now sear, and stripped of grapes) in the 
hollows near Balaklava ; and there are culti- 
vated strips at the sheltered bottoms of most 
of the gorges where water is found ; but such 
oases lie too low to affect the general land- 
scape. Elsewhere, the grass is scanty and 
withered: There are no trees, only here and 
there patches of short oak scrub. Even the 
withered grass and the scrub must be looked 
for. As a rule, one sees nothing but bare 
brown earth, strewn with rough stones that set 
their faces against galloping Aide-de-camps; 
or bristling with bunches of burnt-up, star- 
headed, thistles, of which the best that can be 
said, is, that they now and then shelter a 
misguided anemone. 

Flecking this tawny Sahara, in a line from 



52 



ARRANGEMENT OF TENTS. 



East to West, is the British camp. It is three 
or four miles long, and reaches from the East- 
ern extremity of the plateau to a ravine on 
our left ; whence the French lines continue the 
cordon to the sea. Picture to yourself a triple 
line of those bell-shaped red-tipped tents which 
you remember at Chobham. In front, and 
within a few feet of them, stand all the fire- 
locks, in a single row of tripods — each bayonet 
being surmounted by the shako of its owner. 
One can thus tell the Guards' camp from the 
row of bearskins, the lines of the Highlanders 
from the plumes, and so forth; though the 
heroes themselves may be cooking their din- 
ners, or otherwise non-apparent. Moreover, 
this arrangement, in case of an alarm, enables 
the men to find their arms at once, and in the 
very places on which the regiments would 
naturally stand when forming line. 

Every tent (I assume you to be looking 
towards the front) is pitched about eight yards 
off its side-neighbour, and (in order to give 
room for the cooking-fires) about twice that 
distance from the one before, or behind, it. 
To the rear of the whole triple row — but 
laterally more distant from each other — are 



DIVISIONS OF ARMY. 



53 



the tents of the Generals, the Field Officers, 
and the Staff. Behind these, again, are hos- 
pital-marquees, picquetted horses, bullock- 
waggons, &c. &c. 

My description, however — if you have had 
the patience to follow it — will give you much 
too formal an idea of the effect of the lines, 
unless you allow for the curves produced by 
inequalities of ground, and for the long in- 
tervals between separate Divisions. The truth 
is, that except at particular spots, where the 
symmetry of certain portions becomes appa- 
rent, the camp seems to consist of long strag- 
gling crowds of tents, variously distributed, 
though following a certain general direction. 
There are, moreover, only two or three heights 
whence a view of the whole line can be ob- 
tained. 

The Army is divided into six Divisions. 
They are thus placed : — The Second Division 
occupies the extreme right ; behind it, in re- 
serve, is the First ; to the left of the Second, 
is the Light Division; after which, following 
the same direction, comes the Fourth; the 
Third holds the extreme left ; and the Cavalry 
Division is at Balaklava. As a knowledge 

£ 3 



54 REGIMENTS FOKMING DIVISIONS. 

of the composition of these Divisions is neces- 
sary for comprehending even the public de- 
spatches, and as you cannot obtain it from the 
Army List, you may probably find the sub- 
joined memorandum useful: — 

The Light Division consists of the 7th, 19th, 
23rd, 33rd, 77th, and 88th regiments; with 
the 2nd battalion of the Rifle Brigade : 

The First Division consists of the Grenadier, 
Coldstream, and Scots Fusileers, Guards ; and 
of the 42nd, 79th, and 93rd, Highlanders: 

The Second Division consists of the 30th, 
41st, 47th, 49th, 55th, and 95th regiments : 

The Third Division consists of the 1st, 4th, 
28th, 38th, 44th, and 50th regiments : 

The Fourth Division consists of the 20th, 
21st, 46th, 57th, 63rd, and 65th regiments; 
with the 1st battalion of the Rifle Brigade : 

The Cavalry Division consists of the 4th and 
5th Dragoon Guards, the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 
13th aud 17th Dragoons, and the 11th Hussars. 

To these must be added the 1500 Sailors, 
who are encamped between the Fourth and 
Light Divisions ; a detachment of Sappers 
and Miners; the troops of Horse Artillery 
attached to each Division, and the Marines 



ARRANGEMENTS INTENTS — COOKING. 55 

at Balaklava. A Chaplain of the Church of 
England, and, I believe, a Koman Catholic 
Priest, attends every Division. There are no 
women, native or imported. 

The regimental tents form, as I have men- 
tioned, a line which is only three deep. Ac- 
cording to camp rules, the tents of each com- 
pany are arranged in a row running from front 
to rear ; the men occupying the front, and the 
Officers the rear. The only tents behind these 
are those appropriated to the Staff, Field Offi- 
cers, &c. Thus the depth of the general line 
depends upon the number of tents allowed to 
the men and Officers of a single company. 
Here, the allowance is two to the men, and one 
to the Officers ; but so diminished is the effec- 
tive force of each regiment, that there are not, 
I believe, on an average, more than sixteen men, 
or four Officers, to each tent. Of course, many 
inconveniences must attend a total absence of 
privacy ; but, these apart, I should think that, 
in a place where people need little or no room 
for stowing away their possessions, and where 
the nights are often bitterly cold, close pack- 
ing can be no very great hardship. 

All the tents have little trenches, about a foot 



56 RATIONS — RAW COFFEE — XO OATS. 



wide, and four or five inches deep, dug round 
them to carry off water, in case of rain. Cook- 
ing, of course, goes on outside. The men make 
little fireplaces with a couple of stones, crossed 
with two or three bars made out of the hoops 
of ration-casks ; and the whole is protected by 
a semicircle of some half dozen more stones 
against the wind. Fuel is obtained from the 
patches of outlying brushwood, which are in 
danger of being soon exhausted. Each man 
has his pot for boiling, and cooks his own 
food. The rations allowed per diem are, 
I believe, l^lb. of biscuit, lib. of salt meat, 
and half a gill of rum. Coffee is also served 
out ; but I have not taken pains to ascertain 
the exact quantity, seeing that it is given 
the men, not only unground, but raw, and 
they have nothing either to roast, or grind it 
with, Au reste, the rations are excellent of 
their kind, and are, I believe, varied with 
fresh meat twice a-week. 

Good drinking water is obtained from the 
springs at the bottoms of the neighbouring 
ravines. It is brought to camp in blue wooden 
kegs, called canteens. 

Xo oats, I hear, can be got for the horses. 



TOBACCO — TEETOTALISM. 



57 



This is a great misfortune; for though the 
country nags thrive well enough on hay and 
barley, such a diet is found to " blow out" our 
English steeds. 

Tobacco the men have to buy for themselves. 
It is, moreover, difficult to procure, as you 
may judge from the following anecdote. Two 
privates had got hold of a goose, which they 
intended for their own consumption. An 
Officer coveting the bird, offered 10s. for it, 
and was refused. A few minutes afterwards, 
the men bartered it with somebody else for 
a lump of tobacco which, in England, might 
have cost twopence ! To people at home, this 
deficiency of the " fragrant weed " may ap- 
pear a very slight evil, if not an actual ad- 
vantage. The fact is, however, that in camp, 
tobacco is almost a necessary of life. Smoking 
is decidedly a good stop-gap and palliative; 
and, in proportion to a man's actual wants 
and hardships, he is driven to resort to it. 
I think it is Dickens who introduces a eha< 
racter, to whom it is said to have been " bed, 
board, lodging, and washing." That is pre- 
cisely what it is out here to nearly everybody. 
When the Army go back to veritable beds, 



58 HOSPITALS — STRETCHERS. 



wholesome living, warm houses, and soap, it 
will be time enough to rail against their pipes. 
Meanwhile, I should like to see the wholesale 
denouncer either of tobacco or fermented 
liquors, sent to digest his own arguments, 
without the one or the other, for twenty-four 
hours in the trenches. Eecollect, our men go 
out to the works at 4 A. m., and are not them- 
selves relieved till the same hour next day. 
What is it to these poor fellows, lying on their 
stomachs to avoid shot and shell, all through 
the bitter night, on the bare ground, that 
total abstinence promotes longevity ? The 
question with them, is how to keep alive till 
they are relieved next morning ; and, without 
a little rum and tobacco, they would often 
find it difficult to do so. 

As regards the provision for the sick and 
wounded, there is a double-poled hospital mar- 
quee attached to each Brigade; and ambulance- 
carts are used for conveying such patients 
as require more care and comforts than can 
be afforded them in camp, to Balaklava. At 
that place, there are, I believe, two hospitals ; 
and, if these happen to be full, there are 
transports always plying to Scutari. The 



NOT ENOUGH DOCTOllS. 



59 



wounded are carried on what are called 
stretchers — long narrow wooden frames, 
stretched over with canvass, and with the 
poles extending at both ends, so as to admit of 
being borne by two men. The members of 
the regimental Bands, whose musical functions 
are in abeyance during the campaign, are em- 
ployed in this office. 

I believe that everything, within the scope of 
ordinary foresight, has been done by the home 
authorities to render the Medical Department 
effective. Still there are many facts which 
show the necessity of further measures. You 
are aware, of course, that a large proportion 
of the Surgeons sent out with the expedition 
had to return home sick, before the landing 
in the Crimea. As regards the Medical 
Officers who remain in the field, there is un- 
happily so much cholera (though it is di- 
minishing), diarrhoea, dysentery, and fever, 
that they are fully employed from morning 
to night. What will they do, when some 
bloody engagement triples, and quadruples, 
their work? On the other hand, there is 
a palpable difficulty about permanently in- 
creasing the Medical Staff of the Army to a 



60 "something ? ot" — SUGGESTION. 



numerical strength which is only called for 
by a temporary emergency ; while if an extra 
number are to be engaged pro hdc vice merely , 
they must, of course, be paid much higher 
allowances than are received by their col- 
leagues en permanence. 

As a palliative measure — or, perhaps, 
in any case — it might be advisable to 
retain the services of a lower grade of men. 
I heard a story, the other day, about a 
soldier, who, after some bloody affair, lay in 
the trenches, apparently in the last stage of 
cholera, A couple of men passed by with a 
stretcher, exclaiming that there was clearly no 
use in picking him up. "Don't you be in a 
J urry" gasped the poor soul, "I'm not dead 
yet ! — I daresay I should do well enough, if I 
could only get something 9 otl" So strenuous 
an appeal was irresistible, and they carried 
him off. But I hope his recovery did not 
depend on the speedy administration of the 
treatment he himself indicated ; for, pending 
the demand at that moment for the scalpel 
and the saw, "something 'ot" was the last 
thing he was likely to get. Now, there are 
few men, however slight their knowledge of 



PILLOWS — MEDICAL STORES. 



61 



medicine, who could not be of use in such 
cases as this. They might apply friction ; put 
on hot flannels, and mustard poultices; they 
might, in short, administer a hundred simple 
remedies which would save valuable lives; 
and that, with no better skill than they could 
pick up from the general instructions which, 
of course, would be issued to them by the re- 
gular Medical Staff. More than one Officer 
has told me with his own lips, that he ascribed 
his recovery from cholera to the untiring 
efforts of some friend, who rubbed and rubbed 
away, for hours, at the bloodless skin, till cir- 
culation was restored. But who is to apply 
such protracted remedies to the common sol- 
dier ? It can only be done by retaining a far 
greater number of hospital assistants. And 
adequate funds, I suppose, will not be forth- 
coming for such a purpose, unless we resort 
to the comparatively low-paid class of un- 
skilled labour. 

Pillows, for the wounded, are sadly wanted 
both here and at Scutari. 

With respect to the Medical Stores, they 
were sent from England in abundance to 
Malta : but the case I lately mentioned to you 



62 



PORT-WINE — VEGETABLES. 



of the transport " Cambria/' would make it 
appear, that they have not been sufficiently 
drawn upon, Eice is a great remedy in the 
various bowel complaints that prevail, and I 
have not heard that it is deficient ; but there are 
other articles of diet for invalids, the necessity 
of which was not so easily suggested by the 
experience of Medical Officers in England. 
For instance ; at home, a compound of opium 
and calomel is, I believe, very commonly 
exhibited in cases of diarrhoea. Xow, out here, 
the administration of such medicine, in any 
thing like the proportions in which it is given 
to patients living in houses, would be impos- 
sible. A tent in the Crimea, with steppe-winds 
blowing, is too cold, in any case, for much 
calomel ; but for a man afflicted with a disease 
which is constantly depriving him even of the 
indifferent shelter which that tent affords, such 
treatment would be fatal. Port-wine is found 
to be of great service under these circum- 
stances. There is, however, far too little of it 
to admit of its being freely administered. 

With regard to vegetables, they cannot, of 
course, be sent out here in their natural state ; 
but there is a French patent, under which 



PREVALENCE OF DISEASE. 



63 



they are pressed by steam power into thin 
cakes, which remain fresh for any length of 
time. Why not procure supplies of these ? 
A square inch expands, after boiling, into ten 
times its size, and supplies enough for a meal. 
I have myself some Brussels-sprouts, prepared 
under this patent, which were given me by an 
Officer, and I often use them, and find them 
tolerable, though a little more bitter than the 
unsophisticated originals. The desideratum 
is, however, to supply, not a dainty, but a 
powerful sanitary agent. 

Once more; if our sailors, even in health, 
are supplied with lemon juice, why should 
the soldiers be without it ? 

There is no denying, that the troops suffer 
greatly from disease. The extent to which 
they do so, may be conjectured from the fact, 
that in the four weeks after the Army landed 
in the Crimea, its effective strength # had been 

* Left Varna : — 

23,500 infantry, 
2,000 artillery, 
1,000 cavalry, 
600 sappers and miners. 

Total force 27,100 



64 



EFFECT OF COLD. 



reduced by 7000. Placing (in round numbers) 
2000 of this amount to the account of the 
Battle of the Alma, there remains 5000 to be 
put down to disease. Cholera has 5 happily, 
almost ceased ; but hardly any body escapes 
from some form or other of bowel-complaint. 
So great is the liability to diarrhoea, that very 
slight doses of ordinary cathartics are suf- 
ficient to bring it on. The bleak winds, which 
come and go here so suddenly, have the 
peculiarity of invariably aggravating its 
amount. Cold in England attacks you man- 
fully in the head, throat, or chest : here it 
always hits you under the waistcoat. Many 
Officers wear, as a preservative, red woollen 
sashes, tied several times round the hips ; in 
fact, the kumur-bund of Eastern nations, who, 
I suppose, did not adopt it without some such 
good cause. A blue or green sash is part of 
the uniform of the Zouaves, and of the 
Indigenes; but the French Officers, like our 
own, affect the red ones, as being, I presume, 
more picturesque. 

Apropos of the French, let me wind up this 
long account with some noticeable points of 
difference between their camp-ways and ours. 



FRENCH "WRINKLES" — FRENCH TENTS. 65 

If it is lawful to learn from an enemy, one 
may certainly take hints from an ally. I do 
not pretend to decide the merits of the tent 
controversy. You know, of course, that every 
French soldier carries his own little piece of a 
tent on his back ; that three or more of these 
can be fastened together ; and that thus they 
escape the risk of ever having to bivouac, as 
our poor fellows did on their first arrival here. 
On the one hand, it is said, that the weight 
the Frenchman has to carry, is thus greatly 
increased, so as to interfere with his power of 
making rapid forced marches ; while the tents 
themselves do not afford one quarter as much 
comfort and space as a bell-tent. On the 
other hand, one must admit, that it is in those 
very campaigns which involve the greatest 
number of forced marches, that the means of 
conveying our bell-tents would oftenest be 
found wanting. But whatever may be the 
true deduction to make from these pros and 
conSj as regards campaigns in general, there 
can be no doubt, that, on an expedition like 
the present one, with nothing about it of a 
roving character, the British soldier is the 
best housed. 

F 



66 FRENCH BREAD — COOKING BY ROTATION. 



As regards diet, the following differences 
are the most striking. 

The French soldiers have flour served out 
to them, instead of biscuit, and bake their own 
bread. General Canrobert handsomely distri- 
buted one day's supply lately to every soldier 
in the British camp. 

In the next place, one Frenchman cooks for 
twelve, instead of each man, as with us, pre- 
paring his own dinner. They carry out, in 
other words, the old principle of the Division 
of Labour. The office is taken by rotation. 
Amongst other advantages arising from this 
arrangement, a few large marmites serve for a 
whole regiment, instead of every man being 
cumbered with his particular pots and pans. 
But above all, by its means, a more palatable 
and wholesome dinner for the troops is se- 
cured. So it might be with us. For instance, 
nothing can be better than our ration-pork 
when it has been well soaked for two or three 
hours before being dressed; nor anj^thing 
more salt, and hence more likely to aggra- 
vate the diseases prevalent in camp, than 
the same pork, when cooked without the ini- 
tiatory process in question. It is, of course, 



"bidon" versus canteen. 



67 



impossible for each of our soldiers, amidst the 
various calls on him, to spare every day the 
time necessary for soaking his pork ; but one 
man in twelve might, I suppose, very easily 
do so. 

Again : the French soldier carries, by way of 
water-flask, a light flat tin vessel, like a shallow 
canister, about six inches long by two deep ; 
slightly curved longitudinally, to suit the shape 
of his body ; and slung across his shoulders by a 
strap. There are two orifices in the top : one is 
stopped by a cork, and is surmounted by a short 
fixed funnel ; to admit of being conveniently 
placed to the lips for drinking, or of passing 
liquid into the flask without waste. The other 
orifice has a conical pipe, about an inch long, at- 
tached to it, so small at the top, that water can- 
not easily be spilt from it, and at the same time, 
large enough to admit of the soldier sucking a 
mouthful through it, if he is thirsty. This 
flask, or bidon, as it is called, costs in France 
about a franc. It is covered with cloth by the 
men themselves, to keep the tin from soiling 
their uniforms. 

In remarkable contrast with it, is the 
blue keg, or canteen, with which the En- 



68 



MUSIC IN CAMP. 



glishman is afflicted. First, it is made of 
wood, and carries therefore less liquid, in pro- 
portion to its size, and is less easily rinsed out, 
than if it were made of tin. Secondly, it is 
about twice as deep as a bidon, has no curve 
to fit the body, is (I should guess) half-a-dozen 
times as heavy, and, being round, like a tub cut 
short, takes up more space laterally. Thirdly, 
its orifice, being neither more nor less than a 
bung-hole, is not well adapted for receiving 
and conducting liquid into the canteen without 
the aid of a funnel, and is, of course, particularly 
awkward to drink from. Lastly, it must cost 
twice the sum. There is, in fact, but this 
to be said for it — it dates from the days of 
Marlborough ! 

One other point of difference between the two 
camp systems remains to be stated. The mem- 
bers of our Bands are, as I have said, devoted 
to bearing stretchers. The French musicians, 
on the contrary, are, at this moment, playing 
" Rule Britannia," in compliment to the entente 
cordiale ; and many a poor sick Briton is, I 
dare say, raising himself on his elbow, to catch 
the faint, but cheering strains, as they float 
to our lines. Our Allies argue, that camp is 



WASTE OF RESOURCES. 



69 



the very place where music is wanted; that 
a soldier can carry a stretcher into action as 
well as an accomplished musician, but that, if 
both get knocked on the head, a month's 
training will replace the one, and not the 
other. They add, that even if the musician 
alone will serve our turn, it would be well 
that he should, at any rate, play during the 
days and weeks that happily intervene be- 
tween bloody engagements, in the most active 
warfare. Can you answer this Gallic view of 
the case ? 



F 3 



70 



LETTER VI. 

Camp, Oct. 19th. 

Since my letter of the 9th, everything here 
has received a great impulse. Dissatisfied, I 
suppose, with the information brought by 
their cowardly Cossacks, who invariably scam- 
per off at the first shot of our pickets — the 
Eussians made, on the afternoon of that day, 
a grand reconnoissance on our right front. 
It occurred about three o'clock, too late for 
me to tell you about it by that opportunity. 
I had noticed an unusual scuffling of feet, 
when John ran in to my tent, to apprise me 
that the enemy were in sight of the camp. I 
went out, and there, true enough, were the 
Russians on the crest of the hill, with a few 
mounted Officers in advance of them. Our 
troops were already in line ; horse artillery 
were scudding to the right, and everything 
seemed to promise a general action on our own 
ground. 

Under these circumstances, I made my 
dispositions both for seeing the sport, and 
for beating a retreat if necessary. Putting my 
money, some biscuits, and a flask of brandy 



RUSSIAN RECONNOISSANCE. 



71 



into my own pocket, I told John to put half a 
dozen " concentrated beefs" into his ; to wait 
where he was, till I came back, and to lie 
on his face, if the round shot and canister 
grew unpleasant. He behaved perfectly 
well, and promised obedience. I then bor- 
rowed 's pony, and sticking a revolver 

(don't laugh !) into my holster, rode up and 
down behind the whole length of the lines to 
see the arrangements. The troops merely 
stood before the tents, with the Generals and 
Staff in front ; waiting, I suppose, for the 
Russians to make the first move. This, how- 
ever, the latter had no intention of doing ; and, 
after exposing everybody to an hour or two 
of bitter bleak wind, they retired. I confess I 
was gratified, on coming back half frozen, to 
find my new domestic and traps where I left 
them. But it is only fair to add, that, so 
far as I could see, the camp-servants, gene- 
rally, behaved quite as quietly as if the enemy 
had been all the while in Sebastopol. 

Sir Edmund Lyons happened to have ridden 
here from head-quarters (where he goes pretty 
nearly every day) just in time to see the turn- 
out. 



72 SHARPSHOOTERS — VOLUNTEERS. 

I don't know whether this affair gave the 
Russians a better notion of the position of our 
works than they previously possessed, but on 
the 11th, they contrived to kill two men, and 
wound two more, at the trenches. Soon after- 
wards, Lord Raglan decided on employing 
sharpshooters to approach the enemy's batte- 
ries, and to pick off the gunners at the embra- 
sures ; and the men were invited to volunteer 
for the purpose. Nothing can better indicate 
how little the morale of the poor fellows is 
broken by all the hardships they are under- 
going, than the fact that, though only six out 
of each corps were required for this dangerous 
work, no less than twenty-six men out of a 
single regiment offered their services. The 
duty, however, was one requiring skill quite as 
much as courage ; so, in the end, I believe, the 
best marksmen were taken, irrespectively of 
their own inclinations in the matter. 

The bombardment of the town was, about 
the same time, announced to take place on 
the 17th. The Ships were to join ; and many 
persons expected that it would be a matter of 
a few hours, followed by an assault. 

Such being the state of affairs, about nine 



SOLDIERS AND SAILORS. 



73 



o'clock on the previous night, T could not 
help walking through various portions of the 
camp, to see what effect was produced by the 
prospect of so deadly a conflict on the men 
about to be engaged in it. The soldiers, 
worn out with toil and disease, were perfectly 
silent, and were preparing to go to sleep, pre- 
cisely as usual. The sailors, on the contrary, 
who had been hard at work, ever since their 
arrival, in hauling huge ship-guns up the 
heights, had got lights in their tents, and were 
indulging in every species of fun and lark. 
There was one tent in particular which I 
noticed, in which a jolly tar, gifted with a 
piercing falsetto, was aping a woman, and 
singing a song in the highest possible treble, 
and with such comical airs and graces, that 
the place rang with roars of merriment, and 
approving bravos, from his comrades. But it 
was a touching contrast. Something, no doubt, 
was due to Jack's proverbial light-hearted- 
ness ; but much also to the fact, that he was 
comparatively fresh from his ships, and was 
in the condition natural to Englishmen. Not 
so, the poor soldiers, who have been running 
the gauntlet of exposure and disease, month 



74 



A CONTRAST. 



after month, until, as an Officer latel} T ob- 
served to me, they can hardly be recognised 
as the same men who landed at Gallipoli. 
Some such reflections, I suppose, prompted 
the following lines, which were written by a 
man who lives not far from my tent : — 



« THE EYE OF THE BOMBARDMENT. 

O'er against the leaguered city, countless tents are gleaming 
white — 

Silent, save where, crowding gaily, England's sailors rouse the 
night 

With jest and laugh and chorus'd song, 
By flickering camp-fires stretched along. 

On our muskets sadly leaning, list we to our comrades' mirth, 
As each hearty shout reminds us of the Land that gave us birth : 

So — ere a felon clime could smite 

Us down — so leapt our pulses light ! 

Ah! 'tis long since Cheer and Revel from our pest-worn lines 
have shrunk : 

Yet a thought of comfort stirs us, musing on the thousands sunk 
Beneath a foe that mocks our ken — 
To-morrow we shall fight with men I 

Welcome steel— the onset welcome, fiery shell and glancing 
glaive — 

So we perish not like lepers — so we 'scape the lazar-grave, 
Heaped up in hurried stealth and gloom, 
Without a stone to mark our doom ! 



OPENING OF BOMBAKDMENT. 



75 



Hastes the Hour for which we've laboured, nightly 'neath our 
starry pall, 

Digging close the circling trenches, piling firm the gabion-wall, 
While ever on the thund'ring town 
Our sheeted Camp looked stilly down. 

Not an answering shot has sounded; hoarded vengeance waits — 
'till morn ! 

So the serpent's prey, imprisoned, strikes with frantic hoof and 
horn, 

While, coiled in many a giant ring, 
He nor speeds, nor stays, his spring. 

Foes ! whom, hating not, we hold as victims to a despot's pride ! 

Nobler victims to his madness, conquering, crimsoned Alma's 
tide- 
Along the gory path they trod, 
Bear ye the tyrant's name to God ! " 

It was arranged that the bombardment was 
to begin at half-past six on the morning of the 
17th, upon two shells being fired by the 
French batteries. A quarter of an hour before 
the time, I found myself in the court of the 
Picket-house, among a little crowd of Generals 
and Staff-Officers, who were all levelling their 
glasses at the town, in anxious expectation of 
the spectacle. But already the smoke of the 
Eussian batteries, aided by the wind, had so 
enveloped the whole place, that little was to 
be seen except the Round Tower, which stands 
somewhat in advance of the other works, and 



76 



LANCASTER GUNS — ROUND TOWER. 



to the British right. Somehow or other, the 
appointed signal was not made to time ; so 
the Seaman's Battery opened the ball. In a 
few seconds, another battery followed, and 
before half a minute, a long irregular line of 
jets of smoke had made the position of the 
British trenches no more a secret to any one. 
Amidst the general din — which, however, was 
not overpowering, as nobody had to raise his 
voice in talking — the rush of the shot from 
the Lancaster guns through the air was dis- 
tinctly audible. Its resemblance to the pant- 
ing-sound of a railway engine in motion be- 
came at once the subject of remark. As some 
Paddy observed, " it was the noise of an ex- 
press-train that stopped at no intermadiate 
stations ! " The Kound Tower was appa- 
rently the principal object of the new pro- 
jectile. Indeed, most of the batteries 
seemed to have selected that unhappy edi- 
fice for their mark. To the spectators in 
the Picket-house, no arrangement could have 
been more agreeable, as the smoke prevented 
us from easily discerning any other target. 
For some time the shots fell a little short, but 
at length a 68-pounder from the Seaman's 
Battery hit it full, and made a gap that could 



NARROW ESCAPE. 



77 



be seen with the naked eye. The tower was 
soon scarred all over, but the men inside it stood 
pluckily to their guns, despite the heavy odds 
against them, for about an hour, when it was 
silenced; and the bombardment thenceforward 
became all smoke and noise. 

During this time, I had been trying to sketch 
the scene — I need not send you the result, as 
you will obtain a sufficiently clear idea of it by 
referring back to Punch'' s picture of the Naval 
Review. But the sketch finished, and break- 
fast time having arrived, I returned to my 
tent, leaving behind, amongst other Officers, 
Sir George Brown. The General was soon 
afterwards joined by the Duke of Cambridge, 
who had also been there earlier in the morn- 
ing. While they were engaged in talking 
behind the low wall, a round shot came up 
from the fort, lighted on the wall just between 
them, and after making a playful bound or 
two between the building and the side of the 
court, fell spent against the back of it. 

A second shot had been seen approaching 
when I was there, to which a general obeisance 
had been made; but it stopped short. I 
should add, that there are always a few balls 



78 



EXPLOSION — SHIPS. 



lying in front of the place, though the enemy 
seldom manage to fire past it. 

While I was in my tent, a grand explosion 
occurred, evidently that of a powder-cart or 
magazine. I was out in a moment, and saw a 
white column of smoke towering above the hill 
between us and the works, and surmounted by 
a head of tight little curls, which gradually 
opened out, till the whole resembled — if you 
will forgive so homely a figure — a gigantic 
cauliflower. The men cheered vociferously, 
and I believe I joined them ; but we subse- 
quently learnt, that it was one of our own am- 
munition-waggons that had given our lungs so 
much play. 

The Ships did not contribute their quota to 
the entertainment till half-past one. The con- 
tinuous muffled roar of their distant broad- 
sides was very grand. Curiously enough, 
though it seemed far less loud than the can- 
nonade from the trenches, it alone had the 
effect of making my tent-poles vibrate. The 
two sounds together reminded me (my head 
must have been full that day of household 
images) of a gusty corridor in an old mansion ; 
the naval broadsides were the long rattling of 



THE TRENCHES. 



79 



distant window-frames, and the shots from the 
trenches the sharp banging of doors. 

I again visited the Picket-house in the even- 
ing, and found that the French guns had ceased 
firing, in consequence of a powder-magazine ex- 
ploding, so that the enemy were paying us their 
undivided attentions. The shells looked like 
revolving lights as it grew dark, and I was 
tempted to accompany a picket of the 19th 
Regiment, then going to guard the left Lan- 
caster battery. This was my first visit to the 
trenches. The night covered us effectually on 
our way, and when there, the compact nine-feet- 
high wall of bank and gabions and sand-bags, 
against which the Officer in command and my- 
self reclined, seemed a very fair security against 
round-shot to those who had nothing to do with 
the embrasures. Poor Captain Rowley was, in- 
deed, killed by one that bounded down on him 
from the top of the parapet as he lay in the 
trench; but this must be a rare case. Shell, of 
course, are inconvenient in all situations of life, 
but at night they are less so than at other times, 
as one can see them coming, and scud out of 
the way. In fact, I had promised myself a 
very pleasant pyrotechnical evening in com- 



80 



PREVAILING MALADY. 



pany with the Officer who had invited me 
down ; but the reports from the enemy's bat- 
teries gradually diminished in frequency ; and 
at length there came an order to the gentle- 
man in charge of the gun to cease firing for 
the night. So I retired, having not done much 
more than ascertain, that the enemy's prac- 
tice had been sufficiently good during the day 
to prove, that the perpetual pounding away 
that has been going on from the town for the 
last fortnight, has, at any rate, taught them 
the range of their metal. 

That night, the Russians threw up earth- 
works which enfiladed the French guns, and 
swept many of them out of their embrasures; 
which, coupled with the explosion of two powder 
magazines, kept our gallant Allies silent all 
yesterday. The Besiegers employed last night, 
and the one before, in repairing the mischief 
done to their works during the day — and 
so did the Besieged! The croakers are tri- 
umphant. I have got the prevalent malady (I 
don't mean croaking) ; and though port wine 

and Dr. are bringing me round, I am 

half afraid I shall have to go on board ship 
before the town is taken, after all. 



81 



LETTER VII. 

Camp, Oct. 24th. 

Though little has been done worth writing 
about since my last letter, I have lately ascer- 
tained some particulars respecting the share 
of the Fleets in the affair of the 17th, which 
will, I think, interest you. Of course, you 
will have heard before this arrives, that, ex- 
cept a good shaking given to Fort Constan- 
tine, where two embrasures were knocked into 
one- — little damage was done to the enemy's 
works by the Allied navies on the occasion in 
question. I do not pretend to know what 
may have been the objects of the demonstra- 
tion, or how far they were accomplished ; 
but the moot question of Ships versus Forts 
certainly remains unaffected by it. This will 
be apparent from the account which I am 
going to give you, of the positions taken by the 
various English, French, and Turkish vessels. 

No less an authority, on such matters, than 
the present Governor of Malta, has, I believe, 
laid it down, that 300 yards is the smallest dis- 

G 



82 



ORDER OF BATTLE. 



tance at which a fort should be built from 
the shore, that being the range within which 
men-of-war can concentrate their broadsides, 
so as to be a match for stone-walls. The shoals 
round Sebastopol made it impossible for- the 
British ships to approach to anything like this 
degree of nearness ; and all, except two, lay 
off at distances varying from 1000 to 1700 
yards. The following was the order of bat- 
tle. I cannot guarantee the absolute preci- 
sion of the distances ; but I think you may 
rely on their relative accuracy. 

Let us begin with the Britannia. Place a 
good map of the coast before you, and de- 
scribe a circle, having its centre at Cape Con- 
stantine, with a radius of 1720 yards, and 
another circle having its centre at Cape Alex- 
ander, with a radius of 1990 yards ; and the 
'Western point of intersection will give you the 
position of Admiral Dundas's ship. Alter the 
first radius to 770 yards, and the second to 
1590, and the same process will give you 
that of the Agamemnon. Substitute 1208 
for 770, and 2280 for 1590, and the point 
of contact will show the position of the Terri- 
ble. The British ships were arranged in a form 



PLACE OF EACH SHIP. 



83 



something like a pair of compasses, nearly 
closed, and minus half of one leg. Speaking 
more precisely, it was an acute angle, formed 
by two irregular lines, which, sloping towards 
the North-East from the Britannia and the 
Agamemnon, met at the Terrible. I will now 
write their names in the order which they 
would take in the imaginary figure I have de- 
scribed : — 



British Line. 
Britannia . . 
Trafalgar . . 
Vengeance 
Rodney . . 
Beilerophon . 
Queen . . . 
Lynx (look-out ship) 
Sphynx (ditto) 
Tribune (ditto) 
Sampson (ditto) 
Terrible (ditto) 



Towed by- 
Furious 
Retribution 
Highflyer 
Spiteful 
Cyclops 
Vesuvius 



Distance in yards from 
Cape Constantine. 

1720 
1620 
1580 
1300 
1160 
1140 
1140 
1150 
1340 
1340 
1410 



Then, returning in a direction back towards 
the South- West, the 



Albion . . 
Arethusa . 
London 
Sanspareil . 
Agamemnon 



Firebrand 1280 

Triton 1140 

Niger 1040 

...... 880 

770 



The Spiteful occupied a place inside the 

G 2 



84 FRENCH AND TURKISH SHIPS. 



angle, between the London and the Sphinx. I 
have indicated all the ships by their distances 
from Cape Constantine, because it is neces- 
sary to have a common standard of compari- 
sons ; but you will, of course, remember, that the 
Agamemnon, and all the vessels north of her, 
were also exposed to the Telegraph and Wasp 
Forts, as well as to some recent earthworks, 
higher up the coast. Some of these ships were, 
indeed, much closer to the last-mentioned forts 
than to Fort Constantine. 

The French and Turkish men-of-war took up 
their positions in a line stretching in a South-by- 
South-Westerly direction from the Britannia, 
to a point within 260 yards from the shore. 
They were placed in the following order : — 

French and Turkish Line. Towed by 

Napoleon . . . 
Henri IV. . . . 
Mahmoudie . . 
Valiny .... 
Ville de Paris 
Jupiter . . . 
Turkish (two-decker 
Friedland . . . 
Marengo . . . 
Montebello . . 
Suffren .... 
Jean Bart . . . 
Charlemagne . . 



Canada. 

Turkish Admiral. 

Descartes. 

Primoguet. 

Christophero Colombo. 



Yauban. 
Labrador. 



Albatros. 



ULTIMATE ORDER OF BATTLE. 



85 



I should add that these lists represent the 
order and composition of the lines at half-past 
one, when they opened fire ; but, by half-past 
five, the following were almost the only ships 
engaged with the forts : — Agamemnon, Sans- 
pareil, Rodney (on shore), Bellerophon, 
Queen, Sampson, Terrible, Spitfire, and 
Sphynx. 

I have received another account, which puts 
the Britannia at 2500 yards, and the Aga- 
memnon at 800 yards, from Fort Constantine ; 
and which places the latter ship at 750 from the 
Telegraph Fort, and at 1200 from the Wasp 
Fort. As regards Fort Constantine, perhaps 
the apparent difference may be explained by 
the position of its batteries on the coast. The 
first scale is measured, not from the batteries, 
but from the Cape. 

The sea round Sebastopol is so shallow, that 
even at the place occupied by the Britannia 
there are only fifteen fathoms water; while 
Admiral Lyons, who pushed his ship — no 
prophet was needed to predict it — as far as 
she could go (into five and a quarter fathoms), 
did not get closer than the point I have above 
indicated. 

G 3 



86 "fortune favours the brave. " 

In spite of the distance, the Agamemnon 
and Sanspareil (a soldier gravely mentioned 
her to me the other day, as the Sarsapareil) 
shook Fort Constantine so terribly between 
them, that I suppose it will always be a ques- 
tion, how much the vast naval forces of the 
Allies might not have effected, had it been 
deemed expedient for them all to anchor as 
close along shore as their draught of w r ater 
permitted. The experience of Sir Edmund 
Lyons and Captain Dacres seems to show, 
that the injury to the Fleets, in such a case, 
and in the then state of things, would not have 
been so great as might be imagined. The 
enemy, not contemplating so near an approach 
of our men-of-war, had constructed their em- 
brasures in a mode that did not admit of the 
guns being easily depressed to the level 
of the hulls of ships only 800 yards distant. 
Thus, though the Agamemnon was hit no less 
than 217 times, nearly all the damage she sus- 
tained w r as in her rigging; and of the 650 
persons on board, there w r ere only four killed 
and twenty-six wounded. On the other hand, 
the Sanspareil, being compelled to retire for 
twenty- six minutes, suffered, proportionally, 



DARING EXPLOIT. 



87 



far more injury during her temporary retreat, 
than when she was in her original position. 

It must be recollected, too, that the damage 
sustained in these two cases, was, of course, 
enhanced by the isolation of the vessels, and 
by the concentrated fire which the enemy was 
thus enabled to bring to bear on them. The 
Agamemnon was so hard pressed from this 
cause (during the short absence of the Sans- 
pareil), that her Flag-Lieutenant, Mr. Coles, 
undertook the hazardous office of going in an 
open boat to the Bellerophon for assistance. 
The Rodney came about five to relieve, and 
the Agamemnon then engaged the Telegraph 
and Wasp Forts. 

Whatever conclusion these facts may sug- 
gest as to the part played by the Fleets on 
the 17th, it appears that, in one respect, so 
favourable an opportunity as they then en- 
joyed, cannot recur. The Russians, taught by 
experience, are said to have deepened their 
embrasures in Fort Constantine, so as to admit 
of the guns being hereafter depressed to the 
requisite level. 

But to get back to terra jirma. Deserters 
bring very cheering accounts of the distress in 

G 4 



88 



WOUNDED RUSSIAN OFFICER. 



Sebastopol, and these appear to be confirmed 
by the circumstance, that there is not more 
than one man seen working every three or 
four guns. Our sharpshooters do excellent 
service. They brought in a Eussian Officer 
the other day, shot through both jaws with 
a Minie ball ; it had also cut the root of his 
tongue so deeply as to make the end protrude 
from his mouth ; and there was the greatest 
danger of his dying either from suffocation, 
or from the impossibility of swallowing food. 
He was placed in a little ruin used as a store- 
house, and I lately went with , of Brigadier 

General — — ? s Staff, to ascertain if we could 
be of use to him. He never looked up as we 
came in. It was night, and it was piteous to 
see him by the glimmering candle light in that 
desolate place, sitting in his shirt on an old 
box, before being put to bed ; his face tied up, 
and his swollen tongue being laved by the 
soldier who attended him. But my reason for 
describing to you such misery is to come. 
By the skill of Dr. Alexander, of the Light 
Division, this man recovered sufficiently to be 
sent on board ship ; and he left the poor soldier 
who had helped to clothe him out of his own 



WHITE HEARSES. 



89 



scanty wardrobe, and who had nursed him, like 
a woman, night and day — without a single 
look, sign, or token of acknowledgment ! 

The doctors have enough to do just now. 
Cholera is gone, but diarrhoea remains, and 
lying o' nights in the trenches is not good for 
the complaint. Still, though I often talk to 
the men out on picket, I never hear them 
grumbling ; they only seem anxious to know 
when they are to storm " Sebastopool," and, 
'faith, they are not singular in their curiosity. 

I have just been thoroughly sickened by 

seeing poor , and , go off ill in one 

of those white hearses, called ambulances. 
Fancy a live man being put on a stretcher and 
slid into a kind of pigeon hole, under the 
seats, in the body of such a vehicle ! I was 
glad that — determined to sit out the 
journey, as he best might, on the bench. 
They are going on board ship at Balaklava, 
and till they return, the General will have 
but one Aide-de-camp. 



90 



LETTER VIII. 

Camp, Oct. 29th. 

Well ! I have seen a Battle, or rather part — 
the bloodiest part — of a Battle ; and am 
amazed to find how little I have seen ! If I 
had been told beforehand, that the spectacle 
of two armies, arrayed front to front in a 
spacious valley, and assailing each other with 
the deadliest instruments of modern warfare, 
differs little, to the mere eye, from a Review 
— that even to the mind of one "who hath 
no friend or brother there/ 7 the Event of the 
Day is so absorbing, that at the moment, he 
hardly heeds the human wrecks, dwarfed 
by distance into pigmies, which mark the 
course of every manoeuvre — that a single- 
combat is more stirring than a general Engage- 
ment, and the anguish of one poor wounded 
wretch, whose groans are in your ears, more 
shocking than the most wholesale slaughter — 
I should have doubted. Yet such is the les- 
son of my own experience, and I believe that 



BATTLE OF BALAKLAVA. 



those who have witnessed similar scenes would, 
if true to themselves, bear me out in the 
avowal. 

I am glad, at any rate, that you do not de- 
pend upon me, exclusively, for an account of 
the Battle of Balaklava. How any one, who 
has not somebody in the secrets of the Generals 
by his side, to explain the movements, can un- 
derstand an affair of the kind, is to me a mys- 
tery. If a man is in the melee, he sees only 
that. If, on the other hand, he is at a suffi- 
cient distance to take in the whole field, he 
sees an array of dark sparkling masses — now 
moving, now stationary — covered with smoke, 
or emerging from it. Finally, he sees a certain 
portion of the whole marching away, perhaps 
in very good order. We will suppose that, at 
such a juncture, by good luck, he really does 
know that the fight is decided, and which party 
it is that is retreating; and that he rejoices, or 
laments, appropriately. Nevertheless, as re- 
gards all the sudden emergencies, the daring 
movements, and sagacious plans — all, in fact, 
that give the battle its historical interest — our 
spectator comprehends no more of them, be- 



92 



FALSE PREMISES. 



lieve me, than you comprehend of the ma- 
noeuvres of a Review, 

And now, having reduced your anticipa- 
tions to the proper level, let me fairly own, that 
I was on the wrong side of the Kidge for observ- 
ing the most interesting portions of the engage- 
ment of the 25th. The reason w r as, that when, 
on that morning, repeated discharges of mus- 
ketry and artillery in our rear proclaimed the 
long-expected arrival of Osten-Sacken's force, 
I, in common with my neighbours, believed 
that it would very soon be beaten back again. 
The enemy were advancing at the time to- 
wards the ridge to which I have alluded, and 
which traversed the valley at a point between 
them andBalaklava. Now, this ridge, though 
a great deal lower than the hills which it 
connects, is yet high enough to conceal from 
persons on one side of it, the movements of 
troops for some distance behind the other. 
Assuming, therefore, that the enemy would 
be routed and pursued, I determined not to 
let the ridge intervene between me and the 
sport, and took up my position on what 
may be called the Russian, as opposed to 
the Balaklava, side, at the French Mortar 



RUSSIAN ADVANCE. 



93 



Battery under the telegraph. The battery is 
situated just under the crest of the Western 
hill-side of the valley in the rear of our Camp, 
and commands a view of Balaklava to the 
right, broken only by the unlucky ridge. The 
valley must be a mile and a half broad. The 
hills are of limestone rock, rising steeply 
from the two sides of the plain, and are fan- 
tastically scarped, like most of the Crimean 
heights ; while the general landscape, even in 
the valley, is just as brown, and sterile, as 
on the plateau. The whole country, in fact, 
looks as if it w r as made for fighting ; but by 
no means as if it was worth fighting about. 

On arriving at the battery about half-past 
eight, I could see the Russians (computed at 
20,000 strong) defiling from behind some rising 
ground to our left, on the opposite, or Eastern, 
side of the valley. Numerous loose horsemen 
preceded them. Detached portions of the force 
were scattered over the whole breadth of the 
plain, and the mortars near which I stood, 
played upon some of the nearest of them with 
evident effect. We watched the shells bursting 
over and among them, and producing large gaps 
in their masses ; but it was too far to see indi- 



94 



TURKISH COWARDICE. 



viduals being killed. The fire was not re- 
turned. 

After half an hour or so had been thus 
spent, a body of Kussian horse charged over 
the nearest end of the ridge, and to the great 
mirth and delight of our party (I was stand- 
ing among some French Officers) we soon 
saw them galloping back again. Then they 
joined the main body on the Eastern side 
of the valley, and the whole advanced up 
the farthest end of the ridge, where there 
were three Turkish redoubts, giving a cheer 
as they reached the summit. To our in- 
tense chagrin, they stopped there. We saw 
nothing like resistance. After a time, the 
troops of the British First Division (who had 
been ordered down from the camp) began to 
cross the ridge about its centre, and bodies 
of our cavalry took up their position between 
them and the Western hills. The larger por- 
tion of the Kussian force then retired half a 
mile. Our troopers shortly afterwards were 
seen galloping towards the enemy. There was 
a mass of smoke ; and when it cleared away, 
we saw many corpses strewing the ground ; 
and some horses galloping riderless, and some 



FINAL DISPOSITION OF FORCES. 95 

lying on the field. Whether they were British 
soldiers who had been slaughtered, or Rus- 
sians, or both, we could not tell; but after 
the smoke had cleared away, the melee was 
at an end. Excepting some sharp firing 
behind the Balaklava side of the ridge, in 
the direction of the redoubts, we could dis- 
cover or hear nothing more ; till at two, 
becoming impatient, I went down to the 
ridge to an earthwork manned by a French 
regiment (the 27th). Here I perceived the 
whole arrangement of the British force. They 
were formed in three rows, extending across 
the valley; the first composed of regiments 
of the Line ; the second of troopers standing by 
their horses; the third of the Guards and 
Highlanders. Ambulances were posted here 
and there; and everything seemed ready for 
a general action ; but after waiting till four, 
and seeing no new symptoms of a move on 
either side, I returned to camp — there to 
learn what I had really been looking at ! 

I soon ascertained, that all the most effective 
portion of the battle had taken place on that 
side of the ridge which I had visited too late. 
The Russians whom we saw galloping back 



96 



INTERPRETATION. 



over it in the morning, were no doubt the 
relics of those whom the Heavies, as you will 
have learnt, had drubbed so heartily, and 
against such fearful odds — one of the few 
spectacles in modern warfare, by the bye, which, 
from its having been a purely cavalry affair, 
had none of its effect marred by smoke. The 
splendid reception given by the 93rd High- 
landers to the Russian cavalry, was shut out 
from us by the same unlucky screen. The 
troopers whom we had watched dashing into 
the fire of musketry and artillery on the further 
side of the valley, were, it is true, then and there 
making their terrible charge under Lord Cardi- 
gan ; but so dense was the pall in which they 
were at once wrapped by the musketry and ar- 
tillery of the enemy — so complete, too, our 
ignorance of the nature and object of the move 
ment — that even now I can hardly believe 
myself to have witnessed that sublime display 
of military devotion. I had so far provided 

against this annoyance by arranging with , 

that I was to accompany him in the event of any 
engagement taking place, when I should have 
been pretty sure of seeing the best of every- 
thing, and with the best lights. But he, poor 



" ONE THING AT A TIME." 



97 



fellow, was, and is, sick on board the ; 

and even had it been otherwise, I suppose his 
duty would have compelled him to remain 
behind in camp with his chief, to look after 
the front. And — but that is enough in all 
conscience ! Why I should have told you so 
long a story, with so little to tell, I'm sure I 
don't know, unless to convince you that see- 
ing a battle is not always comprehending it, 
and to make you of a grateful and contented 
mind with your newspaper in the Temple. 

Next day I again went to the rear, and rode 
pretty close to the two redoubts, which were 
taken by the enemy, and which still remain 
in their hands. Cavalry pickets were posted 
near the other earthwork ; but I learnt, that 
no attempt would be made on the part of 
the Allies to offer battle. Certainly, unless 
some great advantage was to be gained by a 
general engagement, one thing is enough at 
a time, when that thing is the siege of Sebas- 
topol ; while there could be no point of honour 
with the Western Powers in driving the enemy 
from posts which were wrested only from Turks. 

By the way, the misconduct of these rascals, 
who, not content with running away, plun- 

H 



98 



SIEGE OF SILISTRIA. 



dered the tents of the Cavalry Division, will go 
far towards dispelling the pleasing illusion that 
prevails at home respecting their character. 
I was once told by Major , the best au- 
thority on the subject, that the far-famed 
defence of Silistria was due much more to 
Arnaouts and Egyptians than to the race 
who got all the credit of it. The common 
cry is, however, that Turks will do anything 
" if well officered." But no more formidable 
qualification of the assertion could be added. 
How are good Officers to be found for them ? 
If, by way of encouraging bravery, recourse 
is had to the ranks, it is found that a com- 
mission is apt to nullify the very virtue it 
was meant to reward. The Turkish soldier 
transformed into an Officer, however valiantly 
he may have acquitted himself before, immedi- 
ately resolves that, having won the things which 
make life pleasant, he will not further risk it. 
To quote an example that was lately men- 
tioned to me; Latif Pasha was distinguished for 
daring as a private ; he was rewarded by pro- 
motion, and ultimately obtained a brigade and 
the rank of Pasha ; yet at Silistria, this quon- 
dam hero might at times be seen in tears at 



TURKS " WELL -OFFICERED." 



99 



the head of his brigade; and poor Captain 
Butler was, on one occasion, compelled to 
threaten to shoot him in order to make him 
lead on the troops. 

If, on the other hand, you resort to Chris- 
tian nations for Officers, the revolting charac- 
ter of Turkish morals is found to be a barrier 
to any thing like that proper sympathy which 
should exist between the men and their lead- 
ers. " Give young Turks," say some, by way 
of meeting the difficulty, " a moral training, 
without meddling with their religion, and 
promote them." But though these advisers 
rightly assume that it is his defective morale, 
and not his Mussulman faith, that makes the 
Turk deficient in the proper qualities of an 
Officer ; they seem to forget that it is only that 
defective morale which enables him to tole- 
rate the vices of his men. Qualify him in one 
respect, and you disqualify him in another. 
Certainly, the nut is a hard one to crack ; but 
I should not be surprised if, some day, the 
Greeks were to crack it. 

I saw eight or ten Kussians, and three or four 
horses, lying dead, on the slope, as I rode over 
the spot where the affair with the Heavy 



100 



FIELD AFTER FIGHT. 



Cavalry took place. The rest, I suppose, had 
been buried in the twenty-four hours that had 
elapsed in the interval. The corpses bore the 
number "12" on their buttons, wore fur- 
trimmed pelisses, and belonged, I believe, to 
a crack regiment that goes by the name of 
the " Weimar Hussars." Their feet had already 
been stripped by our men of boots and stock- 
ings ; a practice invariably resorted to, partly 
on account of the value of the articles them- 
selves, and partly from a belief that money is 
to be found concealed in them. I noticed that 
the features of these men had become so coarse 
from exposure, that they expressed little be- 
yond a stern, sad endurance. Still, the "last 
enemy" had lent their faces a dignity which I 
have not seen in the countenances of their 
living countrymen ; and the stark, white feet 
told eloquently of death. It felt strange to 
find, and leave, them there alone, scattered 
among the stones and thistles — and not a liv- 
ing soul to watch ! 

Being bound for Balaklava, where and 

were still sick on board a transport, 

previous to their removal to the , I 

rode via the tents of the Cavalry .Division, 
and called on some of my old feilow-passen- 



ECONOMICAL PARADOX. 



101 



gers of the Royals. Captain regaled me 

on a luncheon of devilled ration-biscuits and 
candied fruits. You open your eyes, and so 
did I, at the un-Crimean dainties. The fact is, 
that some German has had the wit to freight a 
vessel to Balaklava with English stores. Cigars 
(smokeable ones) are now selling at thirty 
shillings a pound ; and during the week or two 
that the cargo may remain unexhausted, T dare 
say a good many comforts will be purchase- 
able at equally moderate prices. Afterwards, 
nothing of the kind, perhaps, will be obtainable 
for love or money. The laws of political economy 
do not seem to operate here in raising prices 
in full proportion to the demand ; and scarcity, 
rather than dearness, is the inconvenience to 
be dreaded. I can only account for it by sup- 
posing, that the traders, knowing that they are 
admitted only on sufferance, fear to lose favour 
with the authorities by driving quite such hard 
bargains as the necessities of the Army might 
otherwise enable them to do. Still the prices are 
quite high enough to remunerate handsomely 
any merchants who may have the sense to 
seize the opportunity. For instance, the cigars 
in question, being only just good enough for 

H 3 



102 



" TE DEUM. " 



a camp, and having paid no duty, are pro- 
bably fetching the importer 50 per cent, profit. 

I cantered back to the front by about three, 
and was deposited at the tents by the summary 
process of the mare rolling over with me. Find- 
ing, however, that the troops were out, I re- 
mounted her, and went forward towards the 
right. Here were two or three regiments lying 
on the ground, and every sign of business, 
except actual fighting. It turned out that a 
sortie of some 8000 men on the Second Division 
had just been repulsed. The Kussians had in 
the morning sung a Te Deum at Sebastopol over 
the English guns taken from the Turks the 
day before, and under the double influence of 
religion and rum, had been gulled by their 
leaders into the singularly illogical conclusion 
of attempting to win similar trophies from 
the English themselves. Possibly, even those 
leaders were not aware, that the Guards had re- 
turned from Balaklava on the previous evening. 
It was all over, however. In my quest of a 
battle in the rear, I had missed a very brilliant 
affair in the front. I met Lord Raglan, Gene- 
ral Brown, and the whole Staff, together with 
Sir Edmund Lyons, returning from the field, 
as I went back to my tent. 



103 



LETTER IX. 

Balaklava Bay, Nov, 3rd. 

You will guess from the heading of this letter 
that I have " raised the siege ; " and so far as 
bidding farewell to camp-life goes, 1 have done 
so. Work-time is come, and Othello's non- 
occupation is, or ought to be, gone ! 

Observe, however, that my commissariat 
was not exhausted. There was still enough 
greasy meat for three days ; and half a bottle 
of sherry, given me by a friend, remained 
to be drunk. Nevertheless, one or two causes 
had, I will own, combined to quicken my 
departure. So bleak a wind had set in on 
the 29th, after some oppressively hot weather, 
that I had been compelled to double my cloth- 
ing, and even then, could not get warm. Above 
all, during two mortal nights, the luckless 
Economites, shivering, and bent on being off, 
broke my rest with low moans, interspersed 
with a sort of rattle, which he has the 
faculty of making with his teeth. It was 
in vain that the good-natured -Doctor accom- 

H 4 



104 



BOATS AT BALAKLAVA. 



panied me at all sorts of hours to the " ken- 
nel/ 7 and that there, by the light of a candle 
held in my hat, we challenged the Ionian to 
swallow both pill and potion. He took them 
without demur! If he shammed, he did it 
bravely ; but his grinders rattled on unwearied, 
or paused but for such intervals as made the 
recurring hubbub only the more destructive of 
sleep. When, therefore, on the 30th, he de- 
clared, for the third time that week, that he 
would decamp on the morrow, whether I did 
or not, I succumbed. My kit was soon sold, 
and the next day we trudged to Balaklava. 

By the time we reached the harbour, I had 
contrived to get a headache, while John, on 
the contrary, had regained his full share of 
health and spirits. Never did I hear of a case 
where change from bad air to a worse pro- 
duced so rapid a cure as in his. The mischief, 
however, was, that I could make no use of his 
recovered energies in effecting the only object 
I had in view, which was to get rowed out 

of harbour to the Nobody, I should tell 

you, at Balaklava, has yet had the penetration 
to make his fortune by starting boats for hire. 
One, must, therefore, depend on the charity 



GOING TO BED. 



105 



ot such naval Officers as may chance to be 
going in one's own direction, and to have seats 
disengaged. The consequence is, that hosts of 
people are to be seen every day wandering up 
and down the quay, snuffing up garbage, 
and devouring their dear hearts, who would 
willingly give five shillings for a row of per- 
haps as many minutes. Of course, my Ionian 
might have applied to dozens of the said Offi- 
cers before they would have listened to him. 
Nothing, therefore, was left for it but to under- 
take the work myself. And wander about I did, 
shouting first to this man-of-war's boat, and 
then to that, till, what with my headache, the 
cold, and the stench, 1 thought my campaign 
was likely to have a bad end. At last Captain 

took pity on me, and, though he could 

spare no boat to take me to the , kindly 

allowed me to pass the night on board his own 
renowned two-decker. 

Do you know, I am inclined to think it is 
worth spending a month in camp, if only to 
appreciate the luxury of going to bed at the 
end of the time ! It is true, that during my 
tent-life, I never once felt any hardship in 
sleeping booted and clothed ; and that, for the 



106 



ON BOARD SHIP. 



simple reason, that I always did sleep as soon 
as I blew out the candle. But when, on 

board the , I for the first time for nearly 

four weeks, lay with the smooth fresh sheets 
lapping around me, I knew, and tasted the 
difference between that rude prosaic method 
of tumbling out of every-day life into barren 
unconsciousness, and being deliciously wooed, 
lured, and coaxed into repose. I could not, 
indeed, help coquetting with the thing, and 
tried hard to keep awake awhile, that I might 
have my fill of the sensation ; but it might not 
be ! In a quarter of an hour, I was stupidly 
oblivious — from all which, you will perceive, 
it follows, that the more a man roughs it. 
the more luxurious his tastes become. 

I was too late to catch on his way to 

Head-quarters, though I landed at nine. It 
appears, he leaves his ship by these early 
hours nearly every morning for the purpose of 
riding to Lord Raglan's, and of conferring with 
him on the requirements of the expedition. 
However, I met him on the quay when he re- 
turned, and he immediately renewed the hos- 
pitable offer he made to me when I first landed 
in the Crimea. I have now been here two days, 



A SAILOR'S " LARK." 



107 



and what Avith the kindness I have received, 
and the novelty to me of the ways and cus- 
toms on board a first-rate man-of-war, I have 
found much to enjoy. 

Sailors have so much the advantage over 
soldiers during actual war, that, to a person 
fresh from witnessing the sufferings of the 
latter, it is difficult, without an effort of reason, 
to give the former credit for enduring anything. 
Then the tars are such jovial fellows. They do 
everything to music, and make work itself a 
kind of dance. There are four or five hundred 
of them at this moment hauling up a rope, 
with their feet tramping to the tune of Rory 
O'More. Why, it is regular " down the middle 
and up again !" No one who looked for an 
instant at their hearty good-humoured faces, 
could suppose that they felt the exercise as a 
toil. 

In camp, where no fiddle w r as to be had, 
they used to time their steps in hauling up the 
guns, by making one of their number sing ; 
and in the trenches, their animal spirits showed 
themselves in the most exuberant daring. 
Captain Lushington, I heard the other day, 
told some of them who had worked for several 



108 HOW TO TAKE SEBASTOPOL. 



hours at the Seaman's Battery, that they might 
u now go and have a lark." They instantly 
jumped on the parapets to have it there! At 
that battery, indeed, it is with the greatest 
difficulty that they are restrained from expos- 
ing themselves in this way every moment, as 
nothing will content them but watching the 
course of the balls as they fire them ! There 
is but one martial duty with which they cannot 
be trusted, and that is to guard the casks of 
ration-rum — the spirit invariably vanishes 
under their care. Apropos of this little foible, 
somebody suggested, in reply to a remark on 
the difficulties of penetrating into Sebastopol, 
— " Only put up a grog-shop on the other side, 
and the sailors will find their way through !" 
I am not going to attempt to describe 

to you the good ship but I will mention 

a single thing that struck me as very cha- 
r act eristic of the wonderful order and finish 
of a man-of-war. After having been cour- 
teously shown over the whole vessel by one of 
the Officers — from the great 64-pounders, 
(between two of which my cot is swung) to the 
operation-table, which always stands ready for 
its bloody use — I was taken into the carpenter's 



" NEAT AS A PIN." 



109 



shop. It was so dark, that a light was neces- 
sary to exhibit it by. Here, at any rate, I 
thought the elaborate arrangements elsewhere 
displayed, were not likely to be exemplified. 
But I was wrong. The spirit of order had 
found scope even in the carpenter's nails. 
These were stuck in little holes made for the 
purpose in the side of the shop, and were so 
placed as to form national and patriotic mot- 
toes, such as " God save the Queen/' and 
Nelson's last signal. One has heard the 
phrase, " as neat as a pin," but here was a 
carpenter's shop as neat as a natal pin- 
cushion ! 

The damage sustained by the ship at the 
bombardment is nearly all repaired. I can 
see, however, plenty of scars. I hear that the 
missile which told most on her, so far as 
vibration was concerned, was a small water- 
rocket that hit her low down near the keel. 
The shock received was as great as if she had 
struck on a rock. Its violence was accounted 
for on the hypothesis, that the compression of 
the explosion outwards by the weight of water, 
had increased the force of the explosion against 
the timbers. 



110 



MIDDIES. 



What a softening, inexpressible grace is lent 
to a man-of-war by the Middies ! It is particu- 
larly striking after living in a camp exclusively 
composed of mature men. The Army has 
nothing corresponding to these pretty little 
fellows, who, with their rosy cheeks, resemble 
their mamas much more than they do the 
heroes they are one day to be. To meet them, 
too, in the midst of stern work ; and with the 
knowledge, that it was but the other dav, that 
the poor boys were ducking their curly 
heads, and laughing, amidst shot and shell; 
possibly, with about the same sense of adven- 
ture, as if it had been a game at snow-balls ! 
Never dream of degeneracy in a land where 
mothers thus devote their offspring. Talk 
of Sparta — of Eome! England alone rocks 
her children on the wave, and War is the 
" wolf " which suckles therm 



11! 



LETTER X. 

" Caradoc," Nov. 10th. 

I am on my way home ; but as this letter will 
reach you some days before I can follow it, I 
take the opportunity of sending you a rapid 
account of what I have seen since I last wrote. 
You know, of course, from other sources, 
that a tremendous battle has been fought, and 
how it was fought. I shall as usual, therefore, 
relate only what I witnessed myself. 

We were at breakfast on board the , on 

Sunday the 5th, when indistinct sounds of 
heavy firing attracted our attention ; and Cap- 
tain mentioned, that he had noticed them 

ever since dawn. Of course, the gig was soon 

manned, and took a strong party ashore. 

got a pony, but most of us, myself included, 
were compelled to walk. After a mile or two, I 
was obliged to diverge from the rest, as I meant 
to go in the first instance to my old camp- 
quarters, there to borrow ■ — — 's mare (he had 
got well again, and had returned to work), 
and to join him and the General on the field. 



112 



CARRYING THE WOUNDED. 



It was a seven-mile up-hill trudge. The 
occupation of the valley by the Eussians had 
closed the shortest way (by the telegraph) ; and 
the nearest road, moistened by a Scotch mist, 
had been churned by ammunition-waggons and 
horses' hoofs into unctuous mud. When, 
therefore, I had climbed to the crest of the 
plateau, I cut across country. The fog 
prevented one's seeing far ahead, but the 
sharp reports of musketry, and the roar of 
artillery, were quite enough to mark the direc- 
tion, even without the stream of French and 
English soldiers, bearing on their backs, and 
on stretchers, the wounded to the rear. I 
did not stop to question these men, but tried 
to read in their faces the fortune of the day. 
They all looked grave, and behaved with a 
silent, manly propriety, in good keeping with 
their sad office ; but quite at variance with the 
stories one reads of the conduct of soldiers when 
relieved, as these were, from surveillance. 

On arriving at the road which leads to my old 
quarters, I found it full of waggons carrying 
ammunition to the field, and wounded from it. 
But I was surprised to perceive, when at last 
(about one) I arrived, that my friend - 



THE GENERAL WOUNDED. 



113 



and a brother Aide, instead of being in the 
thick of the contest, were in camp. Their looks 
showed that something wrong had happened, 
and I soon heard, with great concern, that 

poor General had been badly wounded, 

and was then lying, faint from loss of blood, 
in what used to be my tent. A shell had also 
hurt, but not severely, — — 's knee. Both my 
friends were naturally absorbed in devising 
means for conveying their gallant chief to some 
place where he would be more fitly sheltered 
than under canvass. But they found time, in 
a few hurried words, to describe the carnage 
which they had witnessed, and pointed out 
the spot (easily visible from the tents) where 
the battle had raged the most fiercely. 

No nag, of course, could now be lent me, nor 
was there any one whom I could join in the field. 
The fight, however, had become purely one of 
artillery ; and the best point of view — as well 
as the safest — for seeing the practice on both 
sides, was some position opposite the centre of 
the line of fire. Having ascertained that a 
place called the Five-gun Battery (in reality 
the Right Lancaster Battery), answered to this 
description, I decided on going there — not, 

i 



114 



POINT OF VIEW. 



however, till I had succeeded, amidst the 
painful excitement around, in obtaining some 
ration-biscuit ! I felt the incongruity of ask- 
ing for food at such a moment. I would have 
given anything to have been" able to weather 
the day without. But I had taken a long walk, 
and (if not knocked on the head between 
whiles, which I did not anticipate) should 
have to take another. So, being famished, I 
asked, and was satisfied. I record the fact, be- 
cause it illustrates the humbling truth, that 
hunger is as callous as Launce's cur. 

The Five-gun Battery is between the Bound 
Tower and the tents of the Second Division. 
It commands the best view I have obtained of 
Sebastopol ; and, now that the fog had cleared 
aAvay, the city appeared to great advantage. 
There was a mound behind the battery, four or 
five feet high, so situated as to conceal persons 
lying down under it, from the Bussians in the 
field, but not from the garrison in the town. 
Nor was it quite steep enough, I should think, 
to have stopped a rolling round shot from any 
direction. Though, however, both the enemy's 
field artillery on our right, and the fort and 
ship guns on our left, commanded the position, 



ASPECT OF BATTLE. 115 

our party was too small to be much noticed. 
It consisted of General England and his Staff, 
and a troop of horse artillery. The horses of 
the latter, which the mound could not conceal, 
were probably the occasion of the very few 
missiles that actually lit near us. The Round 
Tower was firing over our heads at the Allied 
armies. The Russian park of artillery, on the 
other hand, had enough to do with the antago- 
nists before them, who, already (it was not quite 
two o'clock) were slowly gaining ground. In 
fact, the only narrow escape I had, was from a 
shell, which did me the honour to burst within 
a few yards of me, when my ears were, foi 
the first and last time, regaled with the peculiar 
hum which marks the near approach of the 
flying fragments of those uncomfortable pro- 
jectiles (I picked up a hot bit as a memento). 
Still, though we were comparatively safe, I 
was amused, considering all things, by the 
politeness of an Officer present, who on light- 
ing his cigar from mine, expressed an artistic 
regret, that he should " spoil so beautiful an 
ash!" 

At this time, the aspect of the battle, as seen 
from our position, was as follows. Two large 

i 2 



116 



RUSSIAN RETREAT. 



bodies of the Allied troops stood, or rather lay, 
close before the foremost tents of the Second 
Division, a little below the long low rounded 
outline of the hill on which these are pitched, 
and which, on its furthest side, descends to the 
Tchernaya. Another mass occupied a place (as 
seemed to me) about a hundred yards in ad- 
vance, on the very profile of the hill. The whole 
of this ground, I should tell you, rises gradu- 
ally, for two or three hundred yards in front of 
the tents. Crossing the highest portion of its 
outline, was a fourth body of the Allies. The 
ground then makes a dip for about four hun- 
dred yards, when it makes another gradual rise 
of the same rounded character, until it reaches 
an elevation somewhat higher than the hill oc- 
cupied by the French and British troops. Here 
I counted six bodies of the enemy. I suppose 
the two Armies were seven or eight hundred 
yards apart. All parties were pounding away 
with their artillery, and the wind carried off the 
smoke, so that we could clearly see the spec- 
tacle. About three, the Allied troops gra- 
dually advanced, till their foremost park of 
artillery occupied the bottom of the valley ' 
between the two hills. In half an hour more, 



STRETCHERS ON FIELD, 



117 



the Russians were in full retreat towards 
Sebastopol. I could see them in their long 
grey coats marching past us, with their arms 
shouldered, and in good order. 

My sketch of the ground was now completed, 
the victory won, and I got up and prepared 
for my long trudge, so as to be in time for 

dinner on board the ; but I had not walked 

many paces, when one of our regiments was 
brought forward past me, to fire at the re- 
treating foe. Stretchers were being carried 
behind them ; and though I had often seen such 
implements used in carrying the wounded, 
I confess, it gave me a shock to see them borne 
close behind these soldiers — now walking well 
and erect, their faces full in my view — in 
anticipation! An anticipation soon realised. 
Directly they arrived at the place where I had 
been lying, it seemed alive with round shot 
throwing up the dust in all directions ; while 
the stretcher-bearers were running here and 
there — I knew too well for what reason. 

It did also occur to me (why will thoughts 
cross one at the wrong times ?) that, perhaps, 
it was lucky for a certain person that these 
poor fellows did not come up before — that had 



118 



INCONGRUOUS REFLECTIONS. 



that happened, he might have presented him- 
self at a particular nook of the Temple with 
a wooden leg ; but with no honours, no pension, 
to show for it — only sharp shafts of ridi- 
cule, and — " Que, citable, allait-il /aire dans 
cette galereV Ah, ha! you have lost that 
triumph ! 

But to return — a very long way — the Lan- 
caster gun in front is said to have done good ser- 
vice at this juncture, by mauling the retreating 
columns of the enemy. I confess I looked hard 
with my glass, and could see no gaps made, 
nor any approach to unsteadiness. That, 
however, proves nothing ; as a battle is such a 
huge complicated affair, and there is so much 
difficulty in getting a full view of it, that it is 
only by comparing the accounts of a large 
number of witnesses, that a correct notion of 
the whole can be obtained by anyone. 

As I had to return in time for ? s dinner, 

I could not, as some of my friends did, go over 
the field that evening. It was dark when I 
got to Balaklava, and, as usual, a boat was 
not to be had for love or money. A dens ex 
machina, however, at length appeared, in no 

less a person than Admiral who kindly 

gave me a seat in his gig. His Turks rowed 



FLOORING A CROAKER. 



119 



so well, that my contempt for the tribe was in 
complete abeyance, till I got on board the . 

Here, I was rejoiced to learn, that the Gene- 
ral had been safely brought. His cot was swung 
between two great guns, with a curtain drawn 
before it, in the cabin where we dined. Every 
one was glad, when, during our dinner, he rallied 
from his loss of blood sufficiently to put in, 
now and then, a word from behind his screen. 
He was lying in the cot I had myself slept in 
up to that day. Is it not a curious string of 
coincidences, that, when wounded on the field, 
he was given to drink some weak brandy and 
water, which I had mixed for the purpose of 
giving the wounded at Balakiava (the flask 
being part of the kit I had sold to one of 
his Aides) — that he was, next, put upon 
the stretcher, and in the tent, that had be- 
longed to me — and that he was now tying 
in the cot which I had occupied ? 

When I left, he was well enough to walk 
about the cabin ; making, in fact, rather too 
little of his wound. Apropos of his spirits in 
spite of it, I can't resist telling you a story. 
I dare say you know that he, like our gallant 
host, belongs altogether to the hopeful faction. 

i 4 



120 



EPIGRAM. 



The first day that he was well enough to come 
to table, somebody (I forget who) happened 
to be talking very lugubriously about various 
things and the campaign in particular, and 
at length exclaimed, "Ah, war is a terrible 
thing ! " " That's what my wife says," cheerily 
put in the General, and settled the croaker ! 

In England, one reads a good deal of plau- 
sible writing about the necessity for young 
blood in our military chiefs; and there is a 
mot on the subject attributed to the late Sir 
Charles Napier, which is certainly piquant. 
He was asked what he thought of the Army 
and Navy Club ? " Fine young men — -very !" 
What of the Junior United Service ? " Fine 
old men — very ! ! " What of the Senior 
United Service ? " Fine old women — very! ! ! " 
A priori, the young, at any rate, are apt to 
jump to the same conclusion. But observe, the 
sexagenarian himself had lost none of his 
dash and spirit, when he uttered the epigram. 
And whatever truth it may contain for grey- 
beards in general, there are assuredly some 
among our veterans in the Crimea, of whom 
no one in his senses will believe, that, " in 
their hot youth," they could have possessed 



FIELD AFTER FIGHT. 



121 



more glorious energy than they now display 
whenever " deeds of dering-do " are to be 
done. Whether their bodily frames will 
enable them to hold out against any long con- 
tinuation of the hardships they are under- 
going, is another matter. 

The morning after the fight, I again walked to 
the front, and went over a portion of the field. 
No English wounded, I rejoice to say, were visi- 
ble. I made many inquiries of the stretcher- 
bearers, while they were engaged in picking up 
those Russians who had lived through the night, 
and from what they told me, I infer that all, 
or nearly all, our poor countrymen were 
removed the evening before. 

The slope on the other side of the tents is 
not very steep : in fact, a pony which I had 
borrowed in camp, walked up and down it quite 
easily. There was a good deal of low oak 
scrub, but it was not thick enough to pre- 
vent one's picking one's way through the place. 
Our men were digging large pits for burying 
the dead. The horrors I had heard of as 
having been witnessed on the field by those 
who went there directly after the action, were 
to a great degree abated. The Russians who 



122 



RED UNIFORMS. 



yet survived, were too faint to do more than 
groan faintly. They seemed grateful, poor 
fellows, when 1 gave them small portions of 
brandy from my flask ; but, as I had not tem- 
pered it with water, and wished to distribute 
it as widely as possible, I poured out only a 
tablespoonful for each man. It might, perhaps, 
have served to keep them alive, after the cold 
night, till they could be taken to hospital. 

I could see comparatively few English and 
French among the dead. The former, as you 
know, fought in their grey great coats, from 
there not having been time to take them off; 
and the inconvenience which this occasioned, 
by confounding friend and foe, will, I should 
think, cut short the clamour against the 
hue of our Line uniforms. Those writers at 
home who have been running at red, like mad 
bulls, ignore the circumstance, that the French 
— pretty good judges in such matters — make 
their infantry wear trousers of the same 
colour. No doubt, it is an inconvenience for 
troops to be seen plainly by the enemy ; but it 
is a greater one, not to be seen plainly by their 
own comrades; especially when, as happens in 
our case, the latter shoot the best of the two. 



ATTITUDES OF DEAD. 



123 



Many of the Russian dead had been stripped, 
and appeared to be good specimens of men. 
Most of them had blue eyes, regular features, 
coarse brown complexions, and averaged, I 
should say, rather more than the height of 
Frenchmen. They were provided with what 
looked like little bolsters, but which were really 
bags of crumbled brown biscuit. It did not taste 
bad, and, I suppose, it is given them broken 
up, for the purpose of being made more readily 
into porridge. Each man had four days' pro- 
visions ; a circumstance which, with the fact of 
their having brought gabions and fascines, 
shows how confidently they expected to esta- 
blish themselves on Sir De Lacy Evans's 
position. 

The attitudes of the dead were most start- 
ling. I think I told you, that I found the 
Hussars, who were sabred by our Heavy 
Dragoons at Balaklava, lying flat on the 
ground. Here, on the contrary (and the same 
is said to have been the case at the Alma), the 
dead were strewed about in every imaginable 
posture. Arms were stretched upwards, as if 
warding blows, or dealing thrusts. Bodies 
were half raised— the head bent forward — the 



124 MALTREATMENT OF . WOUNDED, 

nether lip bit in — the eyes open — but for the 
glassy stare and marble feet, you might have 
thought them springing at your throat ! The 
suddenness of the stroke had fixed the last 
movement of volition. Those who had bled 
to death, lay placidly. 

You will have heard of the atrocities com- 
mitted by the enemy on the wounded. As I 
returned from the field, I met two or three 
hundred prisoners being taken into Balaklava, 
upon whom, as they passed, all kinds of abuse 
were being lavished by our men. I saw one 
of these Russians, in particular, signalise a 
private who was smoking, to give him a light ; 
but it was refused, with the most hearty 
maledictions. Now, as vindictive feeling 
towards the conquered is the very last sen- 
timent that enters the breast of an English 
soldier, these are symptoms of the extent to 
which the barbarities in question are beginning 
to inflame the minds of our Army, Let the 
irritation go on a little longer, and " quarter" 
will be unknown. 

During the whole course of my walk from 
the camp to the harbour, English and French 
Officers were making inquiries of me, re- 
specting the health of the General. 



DEPARTURE. 



125 



On the 8th I obtained, by Captain Derri- 
rnan's kindness, a passage in the vessel from 
which this is dated. She is bound for Con- 
stantinople, whence — as I have not time to 
deliver my letters at the Embassy — I shall 
proceed at once to England. Dining on board 
her, before she started, were the Duke of 
Cambridge and his Staff, General Bentinck 
(wounded in the arm), Major Nasmyth, and 
others. H.R. EL mentioned many interesting 
circumstances connected with Inkerman, and 
told us that a ball had penetrated his over- 
coat, but had glanced off, in consequence of 
striking against a gold cuff-button of his 
shirt. He was suffering from aguish symp- 
toms, but looked well, considering the amount 
of rough work which he had gone through. 

About nine p.m., I saw my last of the . 

On board her were all those to whom chiefly 
it was due, that my visit to the Crimea was an 
enjoyable one. 



THE END. 



London : 



and G. A. Spottiswoode, 
New-street-Square. 



029 997 784 5 



